ZEST

Abstract:

The world’s ever-growing population demands an increasing amount of protein, which cannot be sustainably met through traditional sources. Innovative approaches are key to procure high-quality protein both efficiently and sustainably. ZEST plans to harness technologies that can exert a global impact, by producing close to user, thus minimizing the carbon footprint associated with logistics from farm to table. Fungi-based protein presents a promising solution to this challenge, given its versatility in utilizing a variety of raw materials and its potential for global production. ZEST’s strategy focuses on devising an enhanced fermentation production system capable of generating a diverse array of biobased protein products.

Our primary objectives include:

1) Developing an efficient, zero-waste automatic production system.
2) Designing a multipurpose bioreactor adaptable to substrates with varying viscosities and dry matter content. 3)Assessing the entire value chains to ascertain their economic viability, market potential, environmental impact, and sustainability of fungal-based products. With the advent of advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), we can embed process knowledge into control systems.

This ensures accessibility across both geographical and educational barriers, thus equipping these solutions to deliver maximal impact on the climate crisis through their truly global applications. Our strategy incorporates an efficient, zero-waste automatic production system that integrates feedstock screening, fermentation condition monitoring and control, along with downstream processing control. We will employ a variety of agricultural waste streams as feedstock. Also, ZEST aims to assess a range of compounds for their potential applications across various industries. ZEST’s approach is geared towards driving the state-of-art in protein production efficiency, yield, and quality, with broad applications in the burgeoning biobased industry worldwide.

Leitat’s Role in the Project:

Leitat’s primary role and contribution to the project focuses on Benchmarking of residual components as ingredients in cosmetic formulations (WP5).

Also, in the assessment of the safety and sustainability of the extracted compounds/ingredients from side-stream food following the Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design (SSbD) Framework developed by the European Commission, through operationalisation of the SSbD aligned with current policy developments for food processes, safety assessment of food ingredients, environmental sustainability and socio-economic assessment and definition of European and local legal and non-legal limitations, barriers and standards.