Funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1.3, Theme 10.
Funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1.3, Theme 10.
Application of innovative biotechnological processes on vegetable prot...
Coordinator
Partner
New breeding techniques like genome editing will be used to produce customised safety food and to generate lines with an improved nutritional profile covering both compounds with beneficial properties and reducing anti-nutritional components. Biotechnological processes will be used to eliminate toxic compounds to produce new food/beverages from novel substrates. Tailored (bio)technological approaches will be set up to valorise alternative protein sources (i.e., cricket powder, micro- and macro-algae, single cell proteins, and yeast biomasses, agri-food and fishery by-products, insect-based foods. Set- up of a safe system of cellular agriculture for the development of novel food, like cultured meat and cheese in connection with Spoke 2 and 4)
Protocol for the development of novel and innovative food/beverages (M36)
The application of innovative food biotechnology paves the way for formulating new recipes for special categories of individuals at risk or with overt food-related diseases. Furthermore, production of personalized novel food with components useful in the treatment/prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCD) has been receiving great attention. A classical food-related NCD is Celiac Disease. The strict maintenance of a gluten free diet using naturally non-toxic grains is not simple to implement. There is also need of gluten free food with improved nutritional and sensory parameters. Furthermore, the global market for gluten-free food is booming in all developed countries and products with innovative and safe matrices are particularly attracting for the cognate industrial sector. From this point of view, microbial cross-over, a process in which a well characterised food-grade fermentative microorganism is introduced onto a new substrate, can be considered a sustainable driver of safe food/beverage innovation. In addition, certain biotechnological approaches have been shown to be able to detoxify toxin contaminated foodstuffs.
Biotechnological genetic processes will be adopted to eliminate toxic compounds and produce new food/beverages from novel substrates. Tailored (bio)technological approaches will be set up to explore the production of modified gluten components, with low levels of toxicity. Processes to purify this protein from the biotechnological matrix will be set up, followed by chemical and functional characterization of the new protein product.
A well characterized food-grade enzyme process to detoxify gluten will be applied on pilot scale. Innovative prototypes of pasta, bread and cereal bars will be developed and tested for immune, sensory and technological features.
Cross-over fermentation will be adopted for the design of safe beverages formulated with alternative proteins (i.e. from lentils, chickpeas and pistachios).
