SBIR-STTR Award

Commercial soybeans require heat processing to deactivate anti-nutrition factors/enzymes. Schillinger Seed has developed a new soybean free of the key anti-nutrition Kunitz Tyrpsin Inhibitor (SKTI-Null). This new SKTI-Null) soybean presents the opportunity for ambient or cold processing of soybeans for use in food and feed. The elimination of heat processing eliminates the need of a signifcant amount of processing energy and greatly reduces the compexity of processing. The project will produce samples of cold/ambient processed soybean meal for testing in feeding trials with swine and poultry. A control lot of SKTI-Active soybeans will also be produced and fed as a reference. The feeding trials will also benchmark against conventional commercial soybean meal. Lab analysis will validate the profile of all the raw soybeans and the meals fed in the feeding trials. The results of the feeding trails will be analysed for impact on feed conversion and weight gain. Assuming success with SKTI-Null cold processed meal we plan to advance to pre-commercial trials the following year in a Phase II project. Anticipated benefits include lower cost protein feed and food production and new opportunity for decentralized processing of soybeans in local facilities near sources or markets. Further benefits could be improved amino acid quality as a result of the elimination of heat exposure. OBJECTIVES: Commercial soybeans contain a number of anti-nutritional factors, the Soybean Kunitz Trypsin Inhibitor (SKTI) being the major factor in blocking the digestion of proteins. This limitation is typically overcome in conventional soy processing by the application of heat to deactivate the SKTI enzyme. Schillinger Seed has developed new varieties of high protein soybean that are free of the SKTI. These SKTI-Null soybeans present a significant new opportunity in soybean processing because heat processing is no longer required to deactivate the enzyme. We propose that the SKTI-Null soybeans can be processed using ambient or cool temperature processing to produce highly digestible soybean food ingredients and feed components. This project proposes to process the SKTI-Null soybeans, through two distinct ambient processes, to yield distinct products that could be of interest to both the food ingredient and animal feed sectors. The processes used are non-thermal techniques for food and feed preparation, meeting the USDA FY 2008 Research Priority #4 objectives for the Development of specialty products or processes using non-thermal techniques for food preservation. The products of these processes will be compared to similar products from conventional SKTI-Active soybeans by both analytical chemistry and in feeding studies with poultry and young swine. The analytical chemistry will validate the nutritional composition and levels of SKTI in the various meals produced. The feeding studies will test the impact on growth in animals and form the basis for initial calculations on the economics and value of the products compared to conventional solvent-extracted, heat-treated soybean meal. The feeding trails will be conducted in collaboration with leading university animal nutritionists that have previously cooperated with Schillinger Seed, bringing expertise and credibility to the studies. This project will complete the needed research and development on the processes and measure the nutrition of the products to validate the concept and lay the foundation for Phase II. Phase II work will include scaling up to commercial processes and producing larger quantities of preferred meals for wider application in feeding studies and initial food ingredient development. Combining the benefits of SKTI-Null soybeans and ambient temperature processing to create a new generation of soy ingredients for food and feed use by means that require less energy use than conventional soy products will present new opportunity for US agriculture. APPROACH: SKTI-Null soybeans and a commercially competitive SKTI soybean variety (SS 435) will each be processed through two new ambient processes to yield soybean meals suitable for food applications and acceptable for feeding studies. The roller process will result in a full-fat soybean meal, the cold press process in a partially-defatted meal. Full lab analysis of the resultant meals will be performed to characterize the material sufficiently. To assess the acceptability of the SKTI-Null soybeans in human and animal nutrition, a set of two feeding trails will be completed with young swine and poultry. The feeding trials will include a fifth variable, a defatted soy meal that will serve as the commercial reference. This procedure will assure that the results can be benchmarked against the most common form of soybean meal used commercially, a meal that has also been used in previous Schillinger Seed sponsored feeding trials. The results of the processing and feeding trials will then be assessed and recommendations made for advanced development and/or validation of the processes on larger scale equipment within the context of a Phase II project as soon as 2009-2010.

The current state of the art of soybean processing requires heat processing to eliminate anti-nutrition factors and make the protein available for digestion. The proposed research will investigate the opportunity to process a new soybean variety that has been traditionally bred (not genetically modified) to eliminate and/or significantly reduce these anti-nutrition factors. This research will investigate applying new and new-to-this-use, simpler, ambient or cool, less energy intensive processing in combination with these new soybean varieties to create feeds and feed ingredients with improved protein quality. Applying ambient processing technologies to these soybeans to deliver the next generation of soybean food ingredients and/or feed components is a key step in realizing the full commercial benefit of this material. Proof of concept work has been conducted in various university labs using bench-top processes (Herkelman, 1992) that must be validated with research and development using small pilot-plant and commercial scale processes. In this Phase II project we will again use small-scale processing to further the validation of the concept with the next generation of low trypsin inhibitor soybean and reduced oligosaccharide soybean. We will complete digestibility studies on the second generation RTI soybean in poultry and swine and with reduced oligosaccharides (ROS) soybeans in poultry. This will be followed by controlled, lab-scale feeding trials in swine and poultry research facilities at collaborating universities to validate the acceptability of ambient processed soybeans in monogastric diets. Then, in year two, we?ll scale up to pre-commercial feeding trials with livestock feeders as larger quantities of these soybeans become available ? to demonstrate commercial viability in preparation for commercial rollout in 2012-13. This will scale up to truckload quantities and allow validation of both commercial processing and feed efficacy. In summary, this research and development will demonstrate and validate the combined benefits of reduced trypsin inhibitor (RTI) soybeans, low oligosaccharide (LOS) soybeans, and ambient, non-thermal temperature processing to create a new generation of soy ingredients for feed (and possible future food) use by means that require less energy use than conventional soy products. OBJECTIVES: The objective of this project is to apply pilot scale, pre-commercial ambient temperature processing technology to second-generation lines of soybeans with Reduced Trypsin Inhibitor (RTI) and with Low Oligosaccharides (LOS) for the creation of a new generation of soybean ingredients with improved nutritional quality. Conventional soybean processing requires heat to deactivate the anti-nutrition factor RTI and LOS and the advent of these new Schillinger Genetics varieties is expected to eliminate the need for heat processing. In addition to applying the ambient process technology to the RTI and LOS soybeans a feeding study will be conducted to validate that eliminating the anti-nutritional factors does allow for growth or the animals at a rate comparable to that of animals on a control diet. The digestibility and feeding studies will include controls to validate the observations and provide a reference to the current state of the science of soy processing. This work advances beyond the proof-of-concept completed in the Phase I study baseline research and development and, if our theory is correct, should show in this Phase II study that indeed the anti-nutritional factors are reduced sufficiently to validate the commercial use of un-heat-treated soybeans in a range of swine and poultry rations. The digestibility and feeding trials will be complimented in this study with year-two pre-commercial processing and feeding of truckload quantities to select species to further validate the small-scale university lab learning and better quantify the economics of commercial launch. The current state of the art of soybean processing requires heat processing to eliminate any anti-nutrition factor and make the protein available for digestion. This research project investigated the opportunity to use ambient (<40C) processing on new soybean varieties that has been traditionally bred (not genetically modified) to eliminate these key anti-nutrition factors. This research will investigate applying new and new-to-this-use, simpler, ambient or cool, less energy intensive processing in combination with these new soybean varieties to create feeds and feed ingredients with improved protein quality. Once validated for use in monogastric feed applications we expect to advance with future application studies as a food ingredient. APPROACH: Building on the Phase I learning that SKTI-Null soybeans in ambient processing track in the desired direction of improved digestibility, this work-plan for Phase II will first assess next generation RTI and LOS soybean lines as we now realize we will need to eliminate both anti-nutritional factors to achieve optimum no-heat process feed ingredients. These two materials will be tested first in digestibility studies in both swine and poultry, followed be controlled feeding studies in feed research facilities, and then, in year two, with a commercial scale feed study in partnership with an integrated feed mill and livestock (poultry or swine) producer to validate market readiness ahead of full Phase III commercialization. RTI soybeans and a commercially competitive SKTI soybean variety (SG 435, or equivalent 2010 variety) will each be processed through ambient processes to yield full-fat soybean meals suitable for food applications and acceptable for the feeding studies planned in this Phase II study with poultry and swine. The preferred ambient process is a roller-mill process that will result in a full-fat soybean meal ingredient. The LOS soybean will also be tested in processing and poultry digestibility studies against the same commercially competitive soybean used above in the RTI study. This will ensure consistency in the baseline data. The best available variety into which Schillinger Genetics have incorporated the LOS trait is a line that also is high in protein (44% protein D.B.) There exists a market for high protein, low fat soybean meal and Schillinger has enlisted the support of American Natural Soy (ANS) as a project collaborator to produce both ambient/cold pressed LOS soybean meal and conventional heat-processed LOS soybean meal and control meals for a set of poultry digestibility and feeding studies. The LOS digestibility study and feeding trials in poultry will follow the same protocol used in the RTI study of this Phase II project. Full lab analysis (proximates, amino acid profiles, sugars, trypsin) of the resultant various meals will be performed to characterize the material sufficiently. The feeding trials will include a fifth variable, a defatted commodity soy meal that will serve as the commercial reference. This procedure will assure that the results can be benchmarked against the most common form of soybean meal used commercially, a meal that has also been used in previous Schillinger Genetics sponsored feeding trials. The results of the processing and university feeding trials will then be assessed and recommendations made for advancing the best option to a pre-commercial, truckload-quantity in year #2 of the Phase II project. These pre-commercial trials refine, and/or validation the processes on larger-scale equipment within the context of preparing for commercialization as soon as later in 2012. The following graphic illustrates the various raw materials, processes, resulting meals, and the animal trials we will conduct in this research program to evaluate the Schillinger Genetic RTI and LOS products and the cold (ambient) suitability for feed preparation.