Biotechnology in ingredient development
TECNALIA promotes projects such as INNOPROTEIN, which focus on developing new sources of proteins and functional compounds from agri-food by-products. These advances address sector challenges and the growing demand for natural and healthy food.
The sustainability of the food chain must be based on strategies that guarantee a reduction of the environmental impact of production processes and the development of products that respond to consumer demands. One of these demands is the search for ingredients that contribute to ensuring a balanced diet, helping to prevent high-incidence diseases. Sustainability and health can come together through the appropriate use of natural sources by applying biotechnological processes to obtain natural and even functional ingredients.
Currently, the agri-food sector faces major challenges, including the search for alternative sources of ingredients and foods to supply a growing population, reducing food losses and increasing the value of by-products generated in the agri-food chain, and responding to an increasingly health-conscious consumer who is looking for products that are both natural and help prevent diseases.
The application of biotechnological processes to obtain natural and even functional ingredients addresses all these challenges. These ingredients can be obtained using agri-food by-products to develop safe, sustainable and healthy food.
In this respect, TECNALIA, and more specifically the Health & Food area, is participating in and fostering various projects at national and European level.
One example is the European INNOPROTEIN project, financed by CBE JU and led by TECNALIA, seeking to obtain new sources of proteins, more specifically single-cell proteins, from different microorganisms, such as microalgae, filamentous fungi and bacteria by means of biotech processes and using agri-food by-products as carbon sources, among other actions.
These agri-food by-products have also been used by TECNALIA to obtain probiotics and postbiotics, such as gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), a neurotransmitter with effects on the control of neuronal excitability within the central nervous system.
This work is a clear indicator that biotechnology can play a key role in addressing the challenges facing the food sector and in contributing to a food system that is more sustainable, healthier and aligned with consumer demands.