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.
Improvement of quality and nutritional value of foods using natural co...
Coordinator
Innovation of food (bio)processing using smart and mild technologies and fermentation to improve nutritional quality while ensuring safety and environmental sustainability throughout the shelf life of foods. Nutritional quality and biodiversity are targeted through both advanced and sustainable processes (including encapsulation) to preserve and improve at-risk (micro)nutrient composition of relevant food categories and exploiting microbiological and biotechnological applications to impact on nutritional quality. Such (bio)technological approaches (e.g., fermentation, enzyme treatments, etc.) are validated by process markers also directed to ensure food production safety and quality targeting new food habits (e.g., ready to eat food and novel food consumption) and sustainability, promoting production efficiency and utilisation of alternative sources (in connection with Spoke 2 and 3).
Scaling up of the most promising prototypes and validation of concepts from small to large scale, also in connection with start-up acceleration programmes.
Development or improvement of at least 3 technological approaches to innovate food production (including cooking and shelf life) in terms of nutritional quality, safety, and sustainability (M24)
Development or improvement of at least 3 biotechnological approaches to innovate food production in terms of nutritional quality, safety, and sustainability (M30)
Proof of concept and scale up of at least one promising food product (M36)
The need to guarantee an adequate shelf life to foods often requires thermal treatments which can partially compromise their nutritional value, or debated preservatives negatively perceived by consumers. Natural alternatives can be based on ingredients derived from plants (e.g essential oils or plant extracts) with sustainable (green) biotechnologies starting also from agro-food byproducts, due to their antioxidant and antimicrobial activity. Moreover, the use of bioprotective/probiotic/tailored starter cultures is indicated to preserve shelf life and safety and, eventually, to enrich the food with relevant functional and nutritional compounds, e.g vitamins, or reduce the content of antinutritional ones. Also, literature reports good synergistic action with innovative non-thermal technologies (e.g. cold plasma, high pressure) or mild heat processes which can be a sustainable approach to innovate food processing to preserve food safety, functional, nutritional and sensory properties.
In agreement with the EU zero-waste challenge the project will be addressed to the valorization of different by-product plant matrices as a source of functional and bioactive ingredients. Also microbial biodiversity of traditional fermented products and of institutional microbial culture collections will be exploited by selecting tailor-made bioprotective and functional strains for specific applications. Antioxidant and antimicrobial activities of plant derivatives will be evaluated for their use as alternatives to chemical additives and preservatives. The microbial cultures will be tested for their antagonistic features (e.g. bacteriocin production) and their beneficial effect on nutritional profile (e.g. vitamin accumulation, reduction of antinutritional factors). The interactive effects also with non-thermal treatments (cold plasma, high pressure) will be assessed to innovate processes and traditional foods into products with improved safety, shelf-life, nutritional and functional features.
The strategic options for the development and marketing of the new healthier foods are possible through the formulation of new concepts which include ingredient upgrading (from nutritious to functional) and technological solutions (from intense to mild).The project will generate knowledge on sources of natural preservatives, nutraceuticals, and bioprotective or functional microbial cultures, and redesigned food processing (also addressing emerging non-thermal technologies) which will be used to reformulate food products and recalibrate the processes, especially heat treatments. This objective is aimed to obtain foods with enhanced quality and safety features, prolonged shelf life, improved nutritional value, better organoleptic characteristics, and antioxidant/functional features. This will be achieved by the application of new ingredients and concepts, and at the same time it will allow a reduction of energy consumption by replacing or reducing the impact of thermal treatments.
