Highly Nutritious Vegan Based Products

**Project Description**

Madarch Cymru seek to pioneer a naturally, highly-nutritious vegan jerky with an umami flavour, to aid in reduced salt & trans-fat intake and increase flexitarian snack choices. **Opportunity**

Sodium reduction in snack items is an important public health measure to reduce salt intake and to decrease non-communicable diseases, i.e. cardiovascular and chronic kidney disease (Nakamura.2023). Within the UK, up to 80% of salt consumed is hidden in processed and restaurant foods (Ji.2013). Umami substances, glutamic and aspartic amino acids and 5'-nucleotides, may help reduce salt & trans-fat intake, particularly in food reformulation of snack items (Nakamura.2023).

Edible mushrooms are rich in protein, fibre, vitamins, minerals, and bioactive components (El-Ramady.2022), and low-fat. Umami taste/aroma is a prominent feature of mushrooms. There is an interest in incorporating mushrooms into snack items, especially non-meat, high-protein snacks such as jerky, (Das.2021), a 'flexitarian' approach, as mushrooms have good compatibility with meat products, with their umami-flavour and fibrous meat-like texture.

**Innovation** **Project outputs:** * Determination & validation of mushroom sources/varieties with enhanced and retained 'umami' flavour.

* Secondary processing and culinary recipes to retain nutritional, chemical, protein and umami content of mushroom vegan jerky. * Advanced analytical and nutritional information * Final product * Consumer tasting trials

Growing parameters and processing/recipe development to retain natural umami and nutritional value in vegan jerky has the potential to meet demands to produce convenience snack items with improved nutritional quality, flavour, and enhanced health benefits.

Light, temperature, humidity, substrate composition and microbial diversity for mushroom cultivation can alter flavour, chemical composition and yield. Secondary culinary processing can contribute to the loss or retention of nutritional and nutraceutical content, alongside umami flavour profiles (Yadav.2021). Optimisation of production methods will enhance the umami and biochemical profile, providing better nutrition, with low environmental impact.

Vegan convenience snack items will appeal to the flexitarian market, which has significant benefits for health and sustainability. **Significance**

The project is underpinned by proof-of-market research with existing as well as prospective customers. Madarch Cymru has an established business track record of mushroom-containing food products as well as experience in R&D and commercialisation of products. They have access to state-of-the-art growing and processing facilities, as well as advanced analytical facilities through a subcontractor.

**Outcome**

Funding will catalyse time-to-market to develop and validate the effectiveness of the mushroom growing methods, secondary processing and recipe design to create mushroom-based vegan jerky that addresses significant Welsh and UK nutrition challenges.