Photopurification to pasteurize milk; Wood-fiber bottle; Food from byproducts

Photopurification process pasteurizes milk
SurePure, a global leader in liquid photopurification, recently announced that its patented photopurification technology will be used in Northern India to broaden consumer access to safe, high-quality milk while improving the livelihood of local dairy farmers.

The initiative, called “Mindful Milk”, is being led by Abhijit Maid and supported by Pankaj Uttarwar and Albert Straus of Straus Family Creamery based in Petaluma, Calif. Uttarwar is the director of R&D and Straus is the CEO and founder of Straus Family Creamery, the first 100% certified organic creamery in the United States. This pilot project utilizes SurePure’s patented photopurification technology to pasteurize and extend the shelf life of cows’ milk. This treatment, combined with implementation of more sanitary milking and handling processes and the creation of a direct-to-consumer sales model, is helping to change the lives of dairy farmers in rural Northern India.

“We are proud to have worked with Abhijit Maid to develop a model that advances more sustainable dairy farming in northern India. SurePure’s technology is enabling us to implement this model in remote and developing areas. We hope that this model can be replicated elsewhere to increase the well-being of farmers and consumers alike,” said Uttarwar.

Wood-fiber bottle for beverages
Danish brewer Carlsberg recently announced a groundbreaking agreement to develop the world’s first fully biodegradable wood-fiber bottle for beverages. Carlsberg has initiated a three-year project with packaging company ecoXpac, with the collaboration of Innovation Fund Denmark and the Technical University of Denmark, to develop a biodegradable and bio-based bottle made from sustainably sourced wood fiber to be known as the “Green Fiber Bottle”.

All materials used in the bottle, including the cap, will be developed using bio-based and biodegradable materials—primarily, sustainably sourced wood fibers—allowing the bottle to be responsibly degraded.

“At Carlsberg we are firm believers in the importance of a circular economy in ensuring sustainable future growth and development on our planet, and today’s announcement is excellent news. If the project comes to fruition, as we think it will, it will mark a sea-change in our options for packaging liquids, and will be another important step on our journey towards a circular, zero-waste economy,” said Andraea Dawson-Shepherd, senior vice president for Corporate Affairs.

This latest initiative forms part of the Carlsberg Circular Community (CCC), a cooperation between Carlsberg and selected partners whose aim is to pursue a circular, zero-waste economy by using the Cradle to Cradle^® (C2C^®) framework when developing and marketing new products. The CCC currently comprises six founding partners, with two new partners, ecoXpac and 1HQ (a global branding agency), announced in early 2015. Its goal is to have 15 partners by 2016.

Valuable food components from byproducts
As part of the EU-financed APROPOS project (7th Framework Program FP7/2007-2013 under grant agreement no. 289170) with 17 partners, scientists have produced protein products from fish filleting residue and rapeseed press cakes. 

One application yielded valuable products from rapeseed press cakes. Press cakes based on rapeseed oil production are currently used as feed components for production animals. In the future, this sidestream, which contains protein and other valuable substances, may become the primary product. It has been estimated that when used as a food ingredient, the commercial value of rapeseed protein products made of press cakes could be as high as EUR 5,000/ton. The market price of press cakes used as fodder is EUR 150–300/ton and the price of rapeseed oil is EUR 400–800/ton. Annually, 15 million tons of rapeseed press cakes are produced in Europe and 50,000 tons in Finland.

As part of the APROPOS project, gentle rapeseed processing methods were developed, enabling the recovery of 50% of the protein of the seeds. The project did not aim at achieving the highest possible protein content. Instead, it succeeded in generating a fraction rich in protein and fiber, with much higher stability in drinks, for example, than can be achieved using a very pure rapeseed protein product produced commercially in Canada.

Finnish researcher VTT developed biomechanical methods to produce proteins and phenols from rapeseed press cakes for food and cosmetics industry applications. The enzymatic treatment helped to improve the extraction of proteins from rapeseed oil press cakes. The most cost-efficient production method is the water-saving enzyme-assisted process, which helps to avoid the expensive drying phase of the material.

Another application involved the Nile perch, an East-African export product. Today, its filleting residues are already used for extracting oil for use as fuel for cooking, for example. It is estimated that more than 90% of the East-African population lives without a sufficient daily amount of protein. In the project, the Norwegian research center SINTEF developed a pilot-scale manufacturing process that utilizes fish filleting residue to produce protein-rich dietary supplements meeting African taste preferences and packaged in portion-size packets.

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