Food processing residues to climate smart food via edible Filamentous Fungi

Providing food and in particular proteins is a major challenge for increasing population and also climate and greenhouse gas emissions.

This project is to develop resource recovery from food-grade residuals in form of filamentous fungi for food production. These fungi are already used in Asian dishes as e.g. Indonesian tempeh or Japanese koji grown on e.g. soybeans.

The project applicants are from Sweden (University of Borås, Chalmers University of Technology) and Indonesia (Gadjah Mada University, University of Lampung). These applicants have long experience in working with fungi.

However, this project is defined to make a strong network between Sweden and Indonesia to further develop production of edible filamentous fungi from food grade residuals, and to produce fungal-based meat resembles from fungi. Relevant companies will also be involved to share their expertise and resources in order to achieve this goal.

This collaborative project is expected to contribute to reduce the stunting as one major nutrition problem in Indonesia by providing a low-cost protein alternative.

The scientific goals include (i) to develop a robust submerged liquid fermentation technology to produce mycoprotein from food grade by-products,(ii) to improve the texture of the mycoprotein to mimic meat fibers, (iii) to asses the nutritional values and safety of the mycoprotein as meat alternatives.

The scientific results will be published in open access international journals.