Globally, about one third of the food produced for human consumption is wasted, and for fish and seafood the figure is around 35%. Most rest raw materials from fish processing end up as fish oil, fishmeal or biogas, largely because there are no established methods for stabilising them at the plant and no business cases for processing them further.
The main objective of SuMaFood was to develop and demonstrate eco-innovative preservation solutions for marine biomasses, so that by-products from the seafood industry and cultivated seaweed can be used as food ingredients rather than low-value feedstock. The project focused on four technological areas in the aquatic food chain:
- Pre-processing and enhanced utilisation of rest raw materials, including stabilisation by chilling and freezing, hydrolysis and oil separation
- Drying technologies with lower energy consumption: microwave-assisted vacuum freeze drying, rapid pulse drying and conventional drying with heat pump heat recovery
- Quality assessment and market approval, including microbiological and nutritional analysis of the dried powders and sensory testing of new products
- Post-processing (formulation, encapsulation and active packaging with natural antioxidants) for improved stability and shelf life
The project combined laboratory and semi-pilot-scale experiments with two demonstration cases at technology readiness level 6, one for a salmon slaughter plant and one for seaweed. The powders were tested as ingredients in bread, snacks, pasta and soup, and an economic assessment examined the market potential and barriers for food-grade products from marine biomass.
SINTEF’s role in the project
SINTEF Energy Research coordinated SuMaFood and led two of its research work packages. In WP1, SINTEF reviewed the state of the art for processing rest raw materials into food-grade products and developed an economic estimation tool that lets plant owners estimate the investment and operating costs of processing and preservation, and thereby a market price for the resulting powders. In WP3, SINTEF led the work on efficient drying of marine biomasses, comparing three drying technologies for energy consumption and product quality, including a 20 kW rapid pulse drying prototype developed with partner Ekonek and installed at a Norwegian fish processing plant.
Results
The pulse spray dryer developed in the project can dry sticky, viscous biomasses such as seafood. Its drying chamber was 30% more efficient than in conventional spray dryers, with an energy consumption of 0.96 kWh per kg of water evaporated. Sensory tests showed that replacing 1.5% of the wheat flour in bread-type products with fish protein hydrolysate powder, or adding up to 3% sugar kelp powder, gave products with good nutritional value and acceptable taste, smell and appearance. The project also demonstrated preservation methods that extend shelf life, and active packaging with natural antioxidants.
Read more on the Research Council of Norway’s pages: ERA-NET: BlueBio – Sustainable preservation of marine biomasses for an enhanced food value chain (SuMaFood)