1241 000 EURO BIOECONMY IN THE NORTH (BIN)
About the project
Main objective: ForestFeed will facilitate the bioeconomy in the Nordic region by a cross sectorial approach through biorefinery processing of woody biomass into valuable protein sources and thereby strengthen the forestry and aquaculture sectors.
Sub-objectives: 1) Develop a scalable bioprocess to efficiently convert currently available and future side streams from forestry biomass processing into microbial ingredient (MI) as an alternative ingredient in fish feed, 2) Fractionate bioactive components from the MI for use in functional feeds, 3) Evaluate nutritional value of the fungal protein and bioactive components in diets for salmonids when exposed to multi-stress conditions, 4) Evaluate growth performance and health effects of MI in large-scale trials with salmonids together with Biomar, 7) Evaluate environmental impact economic impact and market opportunities for the new forest-based innovation, 8) establish a novel Nordic interdisciplinary consortium for innovative cross sectorial research, and 9) Facilitate innovation and future commercial success based on forest biorefinery in the Nordic region.
Forest biomass is an underutilized resource in the Nordic region with large opportunities for value creation. Thus, optimized profit and cascading use should be targeted (1). There is an emerging need to add more value to the forestry biomass. To strengthen the bioeconomy in the sector, ForestFeed will use bioprocessing of forestry biomass, especially side streams, to produce high-value products. ForestFeed will focus on Pekilo, a microbial ingredient (MI), which is based on a specific strain of the filamentous fungus Paecilomyces variotii.
The world production of meat from different livestock species and aquaculture will continue to increase during the coming decades to meet the human protein demand. Aquaculture can play an important role in providing the human protein supply. It is projected that by 2030, Norway will increase its salmon production by 20%. However, the growth of the agricultural and aquaculture sector is limited by a raw material shortage for feed production; as a consequence, Norway is heavily dependent on imported feed raw materials. Hence, there is an urgent need for locally produced alternative feed ingredients with a low carbon environmental based on natural resources that do not compete with human food (5), of which ForestFeed represents an important initiative.
Aquaculture growth faces challenges related to multi-stressor conditions. In Norway, fish mortality exceeded 50 million fish in 2020. Similarly, in Sweden, high mortality in rainbow trout occurs especially in their early life stages. Therefore, future ingredients must not only provide nutrients for growth, but also ensure fish health and welfare. In aquafeeds, MI are gaining increased interest as they are highly nutritious and contain several bioactive components, which can improve fish health and robustness.
ForestFeed will address the emerging demand to develop local sustainable ingredients with health properties for aquafeeds by a cross-sectorial interdisciplinary consortium to upcycle forest side streams into valuable nutrients and bioactive compounds by a circular bioeconomy approach. This will strengthen forestry and aquaculture sectors, facilitating innovation and future commercial success based on forest biorefinery in the Nordic region.
The “ForestFeed” project is highly relevant for the bioeconomy in the north because it will: 1) Refining under-utilized biomass and side streams from forestry into high-quality feed resources and bioactive feed components for the aquaculture industry, creating a solid foundation for a forest-based bioeconomy in the Nordic region. This represent a novel value chain across blue and green sectors to produce human food by developing novel sustainable feed ingredients for farmed fish, strengthening food security and mitigating climate changes. 2) Address sustainable supply of high-quality feed resources that also contain bioactive components that improve health and welfare of farmed fish, which is a major challenge for the global and Nordic aquaculture industry. 3) Develop valuable products linked to renewable biomass, reduced emissions, closed cycles and complete utilization of the wood-based feedstock. 4) Create a strong novel, interdisciplinary research and innovation groups from Norway, Finland, Sweden, Germany and Canada with the overall goal to facilitate a forest-based bioeconomy and mitigate climate changes in the Nordic region.
ForestFeed project is a spin-off project to Foods of Norway, a Centre for research-based Innovation, where we develop MI (e.g. yeast or filamentous fungi) from spruce tree extracts and bioactive components from brown seaweed such as fucoidan and laminarin for use in functional feeds. ForestFeed is also linked to the NordicFeed project where we work across the Nordic region to develop MI from a range of side streams, including underutilized forest biomass and food waste for novel salmon and rainbow feed.
Figure ForestFeed Photo: ForestFeed ForestFeed will upcycle forestry waste streams through bioconversion to PEKILO® as a protein source and will thereby address emerging demand for sustainable aquafeeds. Risk of using such forestry waste streams to produce PEKILO® and techno-economic analysis of PEKILO® process for an industrial scale plant will be done. Environmental life cycle assessment (E-LCA) and a life cycle cost (LCC) assessment of the optimized aquaculture system will also be performed.
Participants
Partners
Academic partners: Dr Kathleen Zocher Institute for Food and Environmental Research e.V, Dr Elin Röös Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Energy and Technology, Dr Kartik Baruah Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Department of Animal Nutrition and Management
Industrial partners: Mr Heikki Keskitalo eniferBio ltd, Dr. Jeleel Agboola, Biomar, Borregaard Associated partners: Borregaard