Eurecot’s new technology opens the door to new alternative protein products

Technology Center Eurecod At the Alimentaria exhibition, I envisioned fermentation technology as an innovative tool to obtain new products based on alternative protein from plant sources, insects, nuts, mushrooms or algae, and to improve the sensory and nutritional properties of plant proteins in the agri-food industry.

With the world population forecast to reach 9.7 billion people by 2050, food companies face the challenge of finding new protein sources to cover the market demand in the coming years from sources based on plants, algae and fungi, insects or farmed meat.

In this context, Eurecod uses innovative solid-phase fermentation processes with low energy and environmental consumption to modify the sensory, technical and nutritional properties of new protein products, for example to produce products such as apple cider vinegar or kombucha beverage. Implemented in the Ekoferm initiative, to give new value to by-products and surpluses of plant origin, explains the researcher of the Nutrition and Health Division of Eurecat Pau Sents.

The research is carried out from Eurecat and the Blended Food Technology Platform of the University of Lleida (UdL), who also presented the PROVEG project in Alimentaria, in which new healthy foods were designed and created , from plant protein sources such as mushrooms, nuts or algae.

As highlighted by the Director of Eurecat’s Nutrition and Health Unit, Ndia Ortega, a comprehensive approach is necessary in the future to use sustainable and healthy solutions to provide protein products and to carry out studies on their safety, protein quality and the impact they can have on people’s health, studies such as those we carry out from the Technical Center.

Within the framework of the event, the Director of Eurecat’s Nutrition and Health Division participated in the presentation of a mapping study of existing technological infrastructures in Catalonia for alternative protein processing, prepared in collaboration with IRTA and promoted by the sector. Co-financed within the framework of the Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda and ACCI, the Agency for Business Competitiveness and the FEDER program of Catalonia 2021-2027.

The document allows to position Catalonia as a benchmark in the objective of alternative protein, to understand the existing and necessary infrastructures in five value chains: vegetable protein, micro and macroalgae, insects, fermentation and cultivation protein. Exemplifies Ndia Ortega.

On the other hand, in the field of sustainability, Eurecod promotes various valuable innovations using by-products of the agro-food sector to obtain new technologically and nutritionally improved food products and to open opportunities for new valuable activities. Dept.

This is the case of the SATURN initiatives for the evaluation of by-products of the fat-based meat industry, which allow the creation of new business activities, and the LIFE SOLIEVA, which recovers compounds in the brine produced in olive production. Process chart for obtaining high value products for food industry.

We provide solutions to companies in the agri-food sector to increase the sustainability of their operations, as well as to improve energy efficiency and water use in the industry, and promote better management through storage and reuse Eurecod Food Market, Carole Benadi.

In this sense, the EFERNEVI project is shown, which applies to the wine sector tools to manage energy efficiency with a hybrid of technologies based on renewable energy and high-performance equipment.