Propelling Health and Sustainability Through Innovative food products and processes (Sustain-a-bite)

Sustain-a-bite has the ambition to develop innovative, affordable, raw material, energy and water efficient minimal processing solutions for nutrient-rich plant-based ingredient and food production, propelling both health and sustainability “one bite at a time”. Our approach is to combine non-thermal technologies (Pulsed Electric Field (PEF), High Pressure Processing (HPP), Ultrasound (US)) together with natural bioprocessing technologies such as fermentation and seed bioactivation to produce nutrient- rich, wholesome plant-based ingredients that enable at least 30 % reduction in energy, 50% reduction in water and close to 90% reduction in raw material consump-tion, compared to production of highly processed and refined plant-protein isolates (Fig. 1). All the processing steps used in Sustain-a-bite are free of chemicals and solvents. The food prototypes produced through Sustain-a-bite concept will ensure maximal nutritional quality and health benefits by unleashing the potential of whole plant raw material. The developed technology concepts and the associated cost reductions in water, energy, and raw materials consumption may further lead to a 25% reduction in consumer prices of plant-based foods compared to commodity meat and dairy products, making them more affordable and available to the consumer. In addition, Sustain-a-bite technologies will enable tackling the cost, taste and nutritional quality challenges within the healthy vs unhealthy plant-based food categories (e.g. potato chips vs wholegrain crackers)