Food industry plant by-products fermentation

The aim of this programme is to decrease dry matter, promote the production of heat and interesting molecules (organic acids, alcohols, aromas, peptides…) through successive food-industry plant by-products fermentations. Currently, such by-products are mostly used for animal feed, soil enrichment, processing in water-treatment plants or methanation and can generate pollution.

Moreover, processing by-products can be costly for industrials. Using them to create value has to fulfill five criteria : environmental, economic, regulatory, technological and societal. For this project, there are 3 types of by-products : fruit, vegetable and grains, which means variable compositions (carbohydrates, lipids…). The by-products come from the 5 partner companies : Charles et Alice, Panzani, Florette, Philibert Savours and Pierre Martinet.

Understanding the microbial mechanisms associated with their degradation will ultimately allow us to direct the fermentations for technological uses. Simultaneously, a predictive statistical approach using bayesian networks is being developed.

A team of Isara researchers has worked on a programme about the various methods, types and fermentation processes of plant-based by-products to allow their best possible use for human consumption.

By the completion of the project, which had launched in January 2017, the knowledge gathered on fermentation dynamics, either spontaneous or directed, as well as some projects initiated in connection with the thesis (for the production of bioethanol or phenyl-ethyl alcohol) led to the suggestion of value-creating possibilities worth pursuing by the industrial sector, as well as a methodological approach to processing their plant-based by-products.