Fermentation feedstocks and co-products: building a more circular economy
When it comes to precision fermentation, Kraft Heinz principal scientist Dr Franny Gilman added that firms will need to valorize waste streams and co-products from their production processes, and find more sustainable feedstocks, both for economic and environmental reasons.
“In a lot of fermentations, you're using a sugar source that’s coming from corn, which is being fed nitrogen from the petroleum industry, so it’s not the most sustainable thing. But the price of sugar is so low, it's very hard to find a more sustainable feedstock that is as inexpensive as corn sugar.
“So I think we need advancements in waste stream valorization, enzymatically converting forestry products to release free shudders as one example, but we need more research on this.”
Picture: GettyImages-sabelskaya