White Biotech TP is funded by FP6
Today's applications
Food & Feed
What is the role of biotechnology?
For centuries, enzymes have played a key role in food production. Indeed, enzymes help to make products like cheese, bread, wine and beer.
An enzyme is a type of protein present in all living things. Wherever a substance needs to be transformed into another, nature uses enzymes to speed up the process. For instance when breaking down food in the stomach.
There are different drivers for the use of enzyme technology in the food industry. Enzyme technology can improve the quality of the food product, for instance, by making juice products that are more cloud-stable or by reducing the content of trans-fatty acids in fat spreads. The technology can further reduce processing costs by reducing chemical and energy use and processing time. Finally, use of enzymes means that more of the agricultural raw materials can be utilized and less waste will be generated.
Today, we understand the effect of enzymes in food production and can tailor-make them to carry out different tasks and a large number of enzymes have been developed for the food industry. Enzymes are used to improve the production processes and the product quality. These enzymes offer a natural, biological route to increased consumer benefits such as prolonged shelf-life, enhanced flavour and nutritional value.
As an example, a loaf of bread begins to break down as soon as it leaves the oven. The starch in the bread loses moisture, which is why bread becomes hard within a few days. By adding an enzyme to the flour, the structure of the starch can be changed to retain moisture better. The bread stays soft longer thereby reducing waste.
In the future, micro-organisms such as moulds, yeasts or bacteria, can be improved to work as "cell factories" to efficiently produce industrial enzymes for different activities targeted at specific tasks.
Examples
Cheese enzymes provide an alternative to animal rennet – a cheese coagulant - and a more reliable supply for cheese makers. This also eliminates possible public concerns with the use of animal derived material. Enzymes offer an animal friendly alternative to animal rennet and while providing constant quality, they are also less expensive.
Recently a special amylase has been commercialised that diminishes the crystallisation of starch, allowing bread to stay fresh and moist longer. This effect has provided industrial bakeries with new opportunities for changing their production and delivery setup in order to produce at larger, centralised bakeries and make fewer deliveries to retailers. The industry can save both money and energy, while less waste bread also means more efficient use of agricultural raw materials.
Degumming is the removal of phospholipids from vegetable oil. The phospholipids cause problems for the storage stability of the oil and the downstream processing and are often removed by a caustic process. An LCA study has compared the enzymatic and the caustic process using data from a US manufacturer who operates both processes. The study showed a reduction of 44 t of GHG per 1000 t of refined oil for the enzymatic process. The major factor explaining the results is the increased yield of the enzymatic process causing savings in the production of vegetable oil, therefore more than 50% of the reductions in GHG emissions stem from the reduced agricultural production of vegetable oil. Other important contributors to reduced CO2 emissions are due to less NaOH production and waste treatment – together these constitute 20% of the total reduction.