BIONÆR-Bionæringsprogram

The growing world population leads to an increased need for food, especially high quality proteins. Along with the increasing request for food, food production is affected by significant rates of food losses that represent useless resource consumption and significantly contribute to waste generation. PROVIDE focuses on the valorization of food transformation industry by-products for use in bakery production. Side streams are generated at all phases of the value chains, from production to distribution, which often still contain a lot of nutritious components. Utilization of some agro-industrial by-products for value added foods will lead to increased availability of valuable ingredients such as proteins, lipids, dietary fiber, vitamins and other bioactive compounds that may contribute to consumers’ health and well-being when incorporated into new food products as the amount of essential nutrients and bioactive compounds will be increased. Suitable side streams of food production have been identified and researched for their applicability. For this project, the following five by-product sources were chosen: dairy production, brewery side streams, oilseed industry, poultry and prickly pear cactus. In this report, the results of the mapping of by-products are summarized for all five possible sources. Factors that were taken into consideration were: • Generation of by-product • Type of processing lines/processing technology • Amounts generated • Production distribution in different countries • Composition of by-product • Current applications • Pre-processing/stabilization before transportation/storage • Safety aspects Later all collected data will also be compiled in an interactive database, together with information on further side streams and by-products. All five researched side streams have a great potential to be used in the PROVIDE project. The average protein concentrations and the estimated extractable protein content of all five by-products were comparable and promising. Rough estimations, including the total tonnage of produced bakery products, the tonnage of new ingredients that can be used for baking and the tonnage of new ingredients that can be added to bakery products (for 1%, 5% and 10% substitution with new ingredients), have shown that the needed amounts of byproducts fit the amounts produced, which means that food waste from those sources could be drastically reduced in the future. For the rest of the PROVIDE project, the main focus will be on the valorization of whey, brewery sidestreams and oil press cakes, as those are the most relevant side streams in Europe. However, the valorization of byproducts from the prickly pear cactus will also be further investigated as a side project due to its potential as alternative crop in dry regions and its beneficial nutritional composition. Although poultry byproducts are a really good source for proteins, it was decided to not include this side stream in further experiments, as several stakeholders of the PROVIDE project have shown no interest in using new ingredients from poultry in bakery products. However, the use of poultry byproducts should be further investigated in the future, as there might be a great potential and demand for it in other food applications. A report has been written on the legal requirements concerning use of sidestreams and byproducts to produce food ingredients. The most important are regulations on food law, regulations on organic production, on animal byproducts, nutrition and health claims and novel foods A project website has been generated – www.project-provide.eu One of the deliverables in the project is to make an interactive database that contains data on raw material source, composition (protein, lipids …) and amounts. To ensure that this database will remain available also after the end of the project the database will be created in cooperation with the METROFOOD project (EU). An online midterm meeting was arranged in November 2021 – the first part was an open event while the second was an internal meeting. Progress and results from all work packages were presented.

The project focuses on valorisation of food transformation industry by-products for use in bakery production. This will be based on “green” innovation processes, which will use also material from organic products and the resulting new products can be marketed “organic”. With the aim to promote circularity in the agrifood systems, 4 specific objectives have been identified: identify by-products rich in nutrients and bioactives, valorise wastes and by-products, promote circular Food Systems, define strategies to put the new products into the market. After having mapped sources of proteins and bioactive compounds from agrifood processes by-products, byproducts from different food production chains (e.g.: dairy, oilseeds, brewery, meat, prickly pear cactus) will be valorised treating them with innovative “clean technologies” in pilot facilities to extract bioactive compounds (e.g. oils, waxes, fatty acids, carotenoids, polyphenols, tocopherols) and obtain defatted protein cakes to be used for producing new bakery products. 3 case studies will be implemented. Quality & safety of sources, intermediate-, end- and by-products, as well as the health enhancing properties of plant and by products extracts, will be assessed. The new products will be tested for consumers’ perception and acceptance and the technologies implemented at industrial scale. Environmental and socio-economic sustainability will be assessed, and integrated traceability systems and innovative processes for human health and well-being developed. PROVIDE is designed to achieve a multi-sector impact (public authorities, market system, consumers/society, healthcare, environment, sustainability&circular economy), thus reflecting its multidisciplinary (anal. chemistry, (micro)biology and biotechnol., environm., food technologies, etc.), multi-actor and Pan-European (Scandinavia – Norway; Central Europe - Germany; South-East Europe – Romania; Southern Europe - Italy) & Northern African (Morocco) approach.