The German-Dutch SUN project is dedicated to the best possible utilization of food-grade by-products from the processing of fruit and vegetable products. The aim is to avoid downgrading the by-products to feed and energy in biogas plants.
The aim of the project is the development of new and sustainable recipes and products under consideration of the food law framework.
The development of new and more efficient drying and filtration processes plays a very important role.
Ambition
Sustainable use of natural resources from the processing of fruits and vegetables, to preserve residual materials from the processing of plant foods to a large extent as food, to develop new products and recipes from the obtained residual materials, these are the goals of the Interreg project SUN.
The way to new products or recipes includes many different steps:
SUN uses synergisms of all project partners for the development of new, sustainable products from by-streams of food processing, opens important market opportunities and additionally makes a major ecological contribution.
News
Our partner for healthy product development in the SUN project
The trend that people want to eat healthier and healthier is unbroken. Delta Food Innovators from Venlo tries to get a healthy and high quality product selection without many E-numbers on the supermarket shelves. To achieve this goal, the company is working in our project to incorporate as many usable residual streams as possible into new and healthy products.
On 18.05.2022 the second partner meeting took place in Villa Flora/Venlo. In addition to presentations of the project partners about the results of their work, it was also possible to visit the company TUN, which has opened another location in the Villa Flora.
Project manager Andrea Finken opened the meeting with a presentation about the achieved interim goals of the project SUN. These are considerable: the progress report has been approved, the project has been published in a scientific brochure, a social media campaign has been successfully implemented, Blue Engineering has been found and approved as a new partner, and the image film has been played out on various channels of the university.
As the evaluations of the social media campaigns show, the interest in the topic "sustainable and natural sidestreams" is very high and the SUN project corresponds to the sustainability ideas on the topic "FOOD".
In the following very interesting lecture on "Scientific evidence on food safety, health and sustainability" by Dr. Alie de Boer (Uni Maastricht) the legal requirements for the utilization of residual streams were explained and critical control points were pointed out. These are important prerequisites to keep residual streams in the cycle of further processing.
Sandy Liew, research associate at The Hochschule Niederrhein, presented the results of her work in her lecture. The development of new products by fermentation from the residual materials, as well as the extraction of bioactive substances from the residual materials, such as vitamin B12, are just a few of the important topics worked on by Ms. Liew and presented in her lecture.
The degree of the event was a "get together", a lively exchange among the partners.
It was great to see all members of the project again and to further deepen the communication. We are looking forward to more partner meetings during the project sound period.
Blue Engineering develops high-quality, technical total solutions for various industries.
Innovations are always sustainable and creative with our new partner! With this new partnership, we have created an ideal prerequisite for the further development of the best possible use of food-grade residual materials! We are therefore very pleased that Blue Engineering will strengthen us in the SUN project!
Read more interesting details about the cooperation in the SUN project in the interview!
Our partner Liquid Salads is now called Delta Food Innovators!
Delta Food Innovators is responsible for product development in the SUN project and generally uses many natural ingredients to make food more sustainable and healthy. For the SUN project, the food engineers explore valuable components from residual streams to make a new product out of it.
Onze partner Liquid Salads heet nu Delta Food Innovators!
Delta Food Innovators is verantwoordelijk voor productontwikkeling in het SUN-project en gebruikt over het algemeen veel natuurlijke ingrediënten om voedsel duurzamer en gezonder te maken. Voor het SUN-project doen de foodtechnici onderzoek naar waardevolle componenten uit reststromen om een nieuw product te maken.
TUN Foods uses modern drying technology to develop healthy food from residual materials
Which food contributes to a balanced diet? How good is the nutritional value of food? The Nutri-Score on the packaging provides guidance in food selection and our project partner TUN Foods is in the process of developing foods made from residual materials that can achieve the best score, namely A. The products are not only excellent in taste but also particularly healthy and contribute to a balanced diet. This is currently being tested with a patented drying technique and we are confident that TUN's developments will result in a Nutri-Score of A. It remains interesting and we will present further developments here!
With the help of a modern drying machine, which can be seen here, the tests for the healthy foods are carried out.
TUN Foods maakt gebruik van moderne droogtechnologie om gezonde voeding te ontwikkelen uit reststoffen
Welke voeding draagtbij aan een evenwichtige voeding? Hoe goed is de voedingswaarde van voedsel? De Nutri-Score op de verpakking geeft oriëntatie bij het kiezen van voedsel en onze projectpartner TUN Foods is momenteel bezig met het ontwikkelen van voedsel uit reststoffen die de beste score kunnen halen, namelijk A. De producten smaken niet alleen heerlijk, ze zijn ook bijzonder gezond en dragen bij an een evenwichtige voeding. Dit wordt momenteel getest met behulp van een gepatenteerde droogtechniek en we zijn ervan overtuigd dat de ontwikkelingen van TUN zullen resulteren in een A Nutri-Score. Het blijft interessant en de verdere ontwikkelingen laten we hier zien!
Met behulp van een moderne droogmachine, die hier te zien is, worden de testen voor de gezonde voeding uitgevoerd.
After almost a year, there was finally the opportunity for a personal meeting of the SUN project partners to inform themselves about the latest project status and to discuss the further procedure.
In addition to presentations from practical applications, the goals achieved in the individual work packages were presented. Particularly important on this day, however, was getting to know each other, networking and mutual exchange. This was also intensively pursued during the breaks.
Great interest was also shown in the presentations by Peter Pijls, TUN Food Innovation and Bart Kuijpers, Brightlabs.
Peter Pijls presented samples and successful results for the drying trials of the samples from Heinz Funken and Manss Frischeservice. He also discussed the difficulties encountered in the drying of certain vegetable foodstuffs.
The analytical results of the tests for the residual streams of the two food processors Funken and Manss were presented by Bart Kuijpers. The determinations of bioactive substances are performed in the Brightlabs laboratory. All meeting participants had the opportunity to join a tour of the laboratory during the break, this offer was accepted with great interest by all project partners.
In the following presentation, SUN project manager Andrea Finken went into detail about the project goals achieved so far. In spite of the corona pandemic, which affected especially the partners from the food processing sector very strongly, all targets in the individual work packages could be realized.
Between the presentations, all partners had the opportunity to visit the poster presentations of the Hochschule Niederrhein on the topic "Extraction of a red dye from red cabbage and use in new products" and "Extraction of the green dye and studies on stability", as well as to taste the first product developments.
All in all, it was an important day in terms of content with numerous insights, tasks and further requirements that have to be worked on until the end of the project.
We would like to thank all project participants for their active participation and for their contributions to keep the project moving forward.
On 08.09. it was time - our image video about our sustainable project was filmed in Germany and the Netherlands!
Therefore, the video crew visited farmer Funken in Kempen to capture the impressions of the fruit and vegetable production for our video.
It was very interesting to see how much residual material is produced, e.g. during the peeling of a pineapple, and which products, e.g. delicious pineapple juice, can be made from the residual material.
The video shoot at Bauer Funken was something very special and made it clear to us how valuable our sustainable project SUN is, so that valuable residual materials are returned to the system (circular economy).
The goal of our INTERREG funded project is to build up the development of high quality end products from valuable residual materials. The use of natural components, the exploitation of regional products and, above all, the increase of raw material efficiency are of particular importance. The cooperation between the German and the Dutch project partners is additionally a great enrichment.
Sustainable food waste valorization is the future and our project definitely makes a difference!
The SUN project makes an important contribution to future generations' ability to live more sustainably. The cooperation of all partners in the INTERREG project aims at finding ways to create value of food that is wasted and bring it back into the system as healthy food. With this work, we try to support and improve the concept of the circular economy.
Please listen to Madhura's interview about sustainable food waste valorization and what must be done by everyone along the food chain in order to strengthen the circular economy.
A screw press is now in use for our project! The lettuce, vegetable & fruit cuttings, which could not be further used in the processing so far, are first shredded. Then they are squeezed out using the screw press so that the liquid can drain off. The residues are placed in a hopper at the top and then enter a screw that becomes progressively narrower. In the outlet there is a cone through the gap of which the pressing pressure can be regulated. The press cake is discharged via the screw and the juice runs off to the side.
If the tests are successful, the screw press is replaced by a more effective and lower-maintenance belt press. The intermediate products are a fiber-rich dry cake and a nutrient-rich juice. These intermediate products can then be used for further experiments, such as fermentation processes.
15.04.2021 Uni Maastricht, our partner of the SUN Project, is dealing with the question, which potential food safety risks must be considered before the suitable by-products can increase the value of already existing products or be a part of newly created sustainable products.
Therefore, we are very happy to announce that Uni Maastricht published the paper "Valorized Food Processing By-Products in the EU: Finding the Balance between Safety, Nutrition and Sustainability" in the journal MDPI Sustainability!
The paper investigates whether valorizing the most environmentally and economically relevant food processing by-products in the EU can be safe, nutritionally valuable, and sustainable at the same time. The paper focuses on potential food safety considerations and nutritional benefits of creating new food products from spent grains, fruit, vegetable, and tuber by-products, oilseed cakes and meals, cheese whey, and meat by-products.To offer practical relevance, it proposes a decision tree that can aid businesses in deciding whether their by-products can be valorized in a manner that is safe, nutritionally relevant, and sustainable at the same time.
The paper has been published open access: https: //doi.org/10.3390/su13084428
For more valuable information about the Uni Maastricht: www.maastrichtuniversity.nl
In order to more specifically analyze residual streams suitable for reintroduction as a new product, the Faculty of Food, Nutrition and Hospitality Sciences recently commissioned two new pieces of equipment for the SUN project.
An ion chromatograph was installed in Prof. Wittich's laboratory. By means of ion chromatography, investigations are carried out to clarify possible stabilizing or destabilizing influences of individual substances (cations and anions) on the natural green coloration. Depending on the results, the proportions of these ions can then prolong or improve the green coloration of the food by selecting certain ingredients.
Furthermore, the BioFlo 120 bioreactor from Eppendorf for the cultivation of microorganisms was put into operation at Prof. Hambitzer.
With the help of the reactor, conditions (such as temperature, gas supply, pH value) can be optimized through targeted control. This ensures that the microorganisms can grow optimally.
At the same time, data is recorded by the device. This means that processes such as fermentation, which are planned to be carried out with the side streams as part of the SUN project, can be precisely controlled and reproduced with the help of the microorganisms.
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