ENZYMASE SA was established in 1972 as a Belgian company in Brussels, the heart of Europe. Its founders had experienced the tremendous problems of importing low-grade sun and oven-dried papaya latex, as it was the only available source of papain at that time.

The so called "crude papain" was and still is today, coagulated latex from the green papaya fruit which is simply spread on a sheet of plastic and sun-dried for a few days. The drying, results in granulation of the material. It is then packed in jute bags for export. The colour is yellowish to brown, with lots of vegetable, fibre and insect fragments. Enzymatic activity decreases rapidly. Microbial contaminants grow fast during storage.

A patented "in situ" mechanical filtration and drying procedure was invented in order to cope with the instability of the product and respond to the world market demand for severe sanitary control on imported materials. The method consisted in a "same day of fresh latex collection" treatment in eastern Congo.
Specific filtration steps, cooling, pumping, spray-drying and packaging were engineered. A unique "in situ" refined papain called "P1", was born.

Following the Food Chemical Codex and standard enzymatic activity methods, "P1" was measured at 600 up to 800 T.U. (tyrosine units) on a regular basis. The measuring was based on casein as substrate. Germ count was below 5.000/gr while free of E. Colli and Salmonella.

Creating some unbelief at the start, and much controversial reactions from the industry, it cannot be denied the product was well accepted and became the reference in the protease world of enzymes.

Today, we are proud to say that ENZYMASE has been promoting and selling refined papain "P1" throughout the world for more than 30 years. Always staying alert to new developments both on production systems and on the marketing side, resulted in permanent improvement of the refining process.