About Us
Our Origins
Vita HydroKultur Group Ltd (VHK) was founded in June 2022 by Gary Thorneycroft and Dr. Paul Challinor – pioneers in Totally Controlled Environment Horticulture (TCEH), having led the design, build, and operation of Europe’s largest vertical farm.
An unexpected collaboration with a biotech scientist researching recombinant human-identical proteins for skin health brought together two distinct worlds: precision horticulture and cutting-edge biotechnology. That fusion became the catalyst for a new production model: using plants as living biofactories.
For decades, the most potent regenerative skincare ingredients have been prohibitively expensive, hard to stabilise, and sourced from animals, marine life, or engineered microbes – raising ethical, regulatory, and formulation concerns.
Our breakthrough? Grow those same high-value, ingredients inside plants – with precision, purity, and purpose.
These include proteins, peptides, and enzymes that are molecularly identical to those our own cells naturally produce – such as those that stimulate collagen and elastin – but which decline with age. By producing them in plants, we enable truly bioactive, animal-free alternatives for next-generation skincare formulations.
To our knowledge, this is a world-first at commercial scale. By temporarily instructing plants to express these molecules, we can harvest and purify them to pharmaceutical-grade quality – without relying on bovine, marine, or microbial systems such as E. coli fermentation. This approach is clean, scalable, and our finished products are non-GMO.
In short: we make skincare ingredients that speak your body’s language – using the power of plants, not petri dishes.
Why We Exist
Today’s most powerful skincare ingredients – the ones that genuinely support skin regeneration – are often off-limits to formulators. They’re expensive, hard to stabilise, and typically sourced from animals, marine life, or engineered microbes. That creates barriers: ethical, environmental, and scientific.
We exist to remove those barriers.
At VHK, we envision a different path: one where the most advanced ingredients are also the most ethical, sustainable, and effective. Our plant-based expression systems offer a new standard in clean biotechnology for skin health.
This isn’t just about better ingredients. It’s about building a supply chain that reflects the values of today’s consumer – and tomorrow’s science.
What We’re Building
We’re raising capital to launch two flagship facilities: one dedicated to innovation, the other to production.
Norwich R&D Facility
Located at the Norwich Research Park, our R&D Centre is where innovation meets precision. It’s where we formulate, stabilise, and optimise our plant-grown proteins for real-world skincare performance – ensuring they remain stable, bioavailable, and skin-compatible.
This facility also serves as a blueprint for full-scale production. Every growth protocol – from light spectrum and nutrient mix to CO₂ concentration and harvest timing – will be engineered here to maximise protein yield, plant health, and crop cycles. In effect, it operates as a miniaturised commercial factory, ensuring a seamless transition from R&D to scaled manufacturing. That way, every breakthrough made here flows directly into real-world production – with minimal friction.
Commercial Facility (Sweden)
Our planned commercial production facility in Sweden takes advantage of clean, renewable energy and is where breakthrough science becomes real-world supply. Designed using the latest in Total Controlled Environment Horticulture (TCEH) technology, this is where we scale precision.
TCEH is built on a simple but powerful principle: plants can achieve peak performance when all environmental variables are precisely controlled. Think of it as removing every stressor – light, temperature, humidity, CO₂, airflow, nutrients, water, even plant interaction – and replacing them with exact, responsive, optimised inputs. Rooted in plant physiology, environmental science, and systems engineering, TCEH allows us to cultivate crops with pharmaceutical precision.
Its modular design means growth towers can be added incrementally, keeping capital efficient and risk low. Each tower holds 72 stacked trays, delivering 435.6m² of growing space. Phase One installs four towers – totalling 1,742m² (18,755 ft²) of production area – primed for scale.
Mission Statement
To culture and deliver an alternative to animal and synthetic products by providing the next generation of cosmeceutical proteins – cleanly, ethically, and efficiently – by harnessing plant expression and precision-controlled horticulture. VHK exists to empower skincare brands with ingredients that are effective, scientifically validated, and ready for a regenerative future.
Vision Statement
To become a global leader in sustainable, plant-based biotechnology for skincare – where science serves people, production respects the planet, and innovation regenerates more than it extracts.