VTT Research

Hydrosol sunflowers

©Hydrosol
Science

Project Aims to Turn Sunflower Oil Industry Waste Into Meat Alternatives

A new research project called Taste2Meat is attempting to upcycle byproducts from the sunflower oil industry into sustainable meat alternatives. Five organisations — VTT, DSM, DIL German Institute of Food Technologies, University of Helsinki, and ABP Beef — have joined forces for the project. The intention is to create products that will allow consumers to make a “smooth transition” towards plant-based foods. Specifically, the project will work with sunflower press-cakes — an ingredient that is a sidestream of sunflower oil production. Globally, sunflower is the third-largest seed oil source, meaning these byproducts are widely available. Pea and rapeseed proteins are also being used as part of the project. Sunflower in plant-based products While sunflower oil has long been used in products such as dairy-free margarines, …

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Onego Bio Ltd team

Christopher Landowski, Maija Itkonen and Jussi Joensuu ©Onego Bio Ltd
Egg Alternatives

Finland’s Onego Bio Raises €10M Seed Funding for Vegan Egg White Biotech 

Onego Bio Ltd has raised €10 million in seed funding to commercialize its breakthrough technology to produce egg white without chickens. The cellular agriculture startup is the latest spin-off from the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and offers a vegan alternative to one of the world’s most used animal proteins. “They have the potential to produce bioalbumen at an industrial scale and at a price point that is competitive with conventional egg production” – Jim Mellon, Agronomics  The Finnish biotech Onego Bio has developed bioalbumen – an animal-free egg protein, using commercially proven Trichoderma technology. The vegan egg white is produced with a specific precision fermentation process that creates identical egg white protein without the need for animals. The startup announces the successful closure of …

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Image: VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
Egg Alternatives

Scientists in Finland Develop Fungi-Based Egg White

Researchers in Finland have developed what could be the first fungi-based egg white. Using precision fermentation to produce the fungi-based egg has the potential to reduce land-use requirements by almost 90% and greenhouse gases by up to 55% when compared to chickens.  As egg white is one of the most important protein ingredients for the food industry, scientists at the Future Sustainable Food Systems research group at the University of Helsinki, together with VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, have shown that fungus-produced ovalbumin could have the potential to mitigate a large part of the environmental burden associated with chicken egg white powder. Using the fungus Trichoderma reesei, the food tech scientists have produced ovalbumin – egg white protein – in powder form suitable for …

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VTT Research Coffee

Elviira Kärkkäinen ©VTT Research
Cultivated, Cell-Cultured & Biotechnology

Finland: Wake Up and Smell the Cell-Cultured Coffee!

Coffee cells have been successfully produced by scientists in Finland using cellular agriculture. The innovation, coming from the land that drinks the most coffee per capita in the world, could help make the future production of coffee considerably more sustainable. Scientists at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland produced the coffee cells in a bioreactor utilizing cellular agriculture – the process in which cell cultures floating in bioreactors can be filled with nutrient medium and used to produce various animal- and plant-based products. The team claims that the first batches produced smell and taste like conventional coffee. Increasing demand, coupled with sustainability challenges and ethical concerns, is rendering traditional coffee agriculture wholly unsustainable. Development and market entry of such cellular agriculture, however, currently hinges …

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