Dutch company active in food-ingredients is looking for innovative fermentation technologies to upgrade agricultural waste/side streams into functional and/or nutritional ingredients for the baking industry.

The Dutch subsidiary of a British corporation develops ingredients for the global baking industry, providing functional or nutritional ingredients to the baker that fit their particular product and processing needs. Many refined food ingredients are associated with inefficiency at the early stages of the agricultural value chain, producing waste streams that are at best re-routed into animal feedstocks and at worst burnt or enter landfill. The potential to upgrade such side streams into food ingredients of value in human nutrition is therefore highly sought. However, such materials are not directly suitable for the human diet, perhaps due to indigestibility or poor functionality, despite them having inherent nutritional value. Fermentation can be a natural way to unlock the true nutritional value of such materials and to modify their flavour or function to more closely match the properties desired by food manufacturers. Since the baking industry is one of the major food categories in the world, addressing both staple food and added value products, the industry is well positioned to contribute to the sustainable economy through use of such upgraded agro-waste streams. Where do you fit in? The company is looking for innovative ideas or innovative processes in development or already existing processes to use fermentation technologies to upgrade agricultural waste/side streams into functional and/or nutritional ingredients for baking applications How can the company produce functional (texture, preservation) and/or nutritional (fibres, proteins) ingredients for the baking industry by means of fermentation of agro-food waste/side streams. The ingredient technology developed here will be used by the company in conjunction with other functional ingredients to deliver tools specifically tailored to the industrial and craft bakery industry worldwide. What's in it for the partners? • An assignment to realize a prototype or pilot • Access to facilities, technology, experience and global markets • Possibility for a joint development project • Possibility for a joint scaling up project • Probability for a lasting collaboration • Global network of cooperation partners and potential customers ‘other types of cooperation may be considered’ Cooperation is envisaged within the frame of a license agreement, a research cooperation agreement or a technical cooperation agreement. IMPORTANT: This technology request refers to an innovation challenge published on an open internet platform. If an organization expresses interest before the closing date, it will be guided towards this open innovation platform. After registration on the platform participants can browse free through other submissions and engage in discussions. All submissions will get feedback by the company on this open platform. The challenge closes on March 29th. Mind that posts on this platform are not confidential. Beside open discussions on the platform, sharing of confidential information will be made possible on demand. After that, the firm will select the SMEs that will be invited for further contact to discuss cooperation possibilities aimed at the development of a solution. Once the challenge is closed, expressions of interest for this technology request will be treated in the traditional way.