Lab-based optimisation of microbial food and probiotics production

Optimising microbial cultivation conditions

Microbially produced foods have a long history of safe consumption and have tremendous potential to provide sustainable, nutritious and delicious food for a growing world population. Industrial microbial processes are becoming more widespread in the food industry. Innovations in the use of microorganisms, e.g., to enhance flavors, as probiotics, in food fermentation and as whole cell protein substitute have necessitated production of a diverse set of bacteria, fungi and yeasts at large scale. However, while innovations in the use of microorganisms are becoming widespread, production of bacteria, fungi and yeast at large scale often do not reach their full potential. Typically, fermentation processes need to be specifically tailored towards the microbe of interest. Furthermore, optimization of existing production processes can have dramatic improvements on the product quality, sustainability and economics. Lab-based optimization does, however, often require a multitude of specialized culturing and analysis equipment, combined with expertise on how to translate to an industrial process.

Specialised microbial research and fermentation equipment

Wageningen Food & Biobased Research has a unique and wide range of in-house expertise on microbial physiology, growth phenotype screening, fermentation up and down-scaling, down-stream-processing and food application testing. This is facilitated by the presence of on-site state-of-the-art equipment that allows for pH-controlled (fed)-batch fermentation from 1mL up to 100L scale. We developed a multi-stage pipeline for microbial process optimization, in which product quality, applicability and challenges with process up-scaling are integrated:

Stage 1: creation of a screening platform with lowest complexity while maintaining adequate translation towards full-scale.
Stage 2: lab-scale experiments to identify cultivation conditions that improve key performance indicators.
Stage 3: production at 100L pilot scale to generated material for application and food formulation testing.
Stage 4: tech. transfer and assistance with implementation optimized process conditions at industrial scale.

Screening, Monitoring and Scale-up

Among the various projects we've undertaken for industrial clients, we take special pride in our collaboration with The Akkermansia Company on improving the production process of Akkermansia muciniphila:

The strategies mentioned above have proven equally effective within public-private partnerships. In the EU-funded project named PLENITUDE, the multi-stage pipeline was utilized to screen for conditions that can enhance the final product quality in the production process of mycoprotein using Fusarium venenatum.