SBIR-STTR Award

In this USDA SBIR Phase I proposal we will develop a proof-of-concept natural antifungal bioprotectant that is applicable to bread and other baked goods contributing to reduced food waste(Area 8.5). Baked goods account for 4% of food waste nationally or >$6 billion in economic loss. Current artificial chemical preservatives (e.g. benzoates and sorbates) are increasingly subject to scrutiny by consumers and regulators and may have unintended health consequences particularlyon the gut microbiome. Existing bioprotection solutions do not provide protection to levels required by food manufacturers and there is an urgent market need for higher performance naturalal ternatives. We propose a high risk innovative approach in which we precisely and intentionally combine supernatants/fermentates from individual natural microbial cultures (yielding a new ingredient which we call a "Superculture"). Existing bioprotectant products are based on individual strains and work through single mechanisms of actions; this work will identify and utilize proprietary synergies between a variety of cultures. State of the art bioinformatic and statistical design approaches will be combined with high throughput screening. The output of this Phase I effort will be validated Superculture prototypes at the benchtop scale that would motivate a larger effort to optimize validate and scale a new product with significant commercial impact and societal and environmental implications.

The goal of this proposal is to develop a bio preservative ingredient that extends the shelf life food products starting with soft cheeses such as cottage cheese. Dairy products are part of a healthy diet for ~80% of Americans providing essential protein calcium and vitamins. Dairy foods are highly susceptible to microbial spoilage but chemical preservatives used in dairy foods are increasingly restricted due to safety concerns. Thus dairy manufacturers urgently need effective natural alternatives known as "biopreservatives" which use microbial fermentation to naturally inhibit spoilage organism growth. Whereas chemical preservatives are single molecules with one antimicrobial mechanism of action (MoA) our product combines multiple Mo Athrough rationally TM selected microbial communities or "Superculture ingredients"(SCI). Our USDA SBIR Ph I research used computational methods and high-throughput screening to identify a novel lead anti fungal ingredient. Preliminary Phase I characterization demonstrated that prototype performance significantly exceeds in-market leading biopreservative products and that ingredient production could be scaled up to pilot ferment or volumes. In Phase II we propose to build on these exciting results by optimizing performance and production to verify performance at commercial scales enabling broad commercialization of this high performance biopreservative ingredient and ultimately reducing spoilage of dairy products. This product will provide benefits to food manufacturers and end consumers; by decreasing spoilage it will reduce food waste reduce distribution costs increase accessibility of healthy dairy products and reduce the ecological impact of artificial chemicals and plastic packaging.