Background
From 2012-2014, CyberColloids participated as the Industrial Coordinator in the EU funded TASTE project. The main aim of the project was to develop new healthy flavour ingredients from edible seaweeds with the potential to replace sodium in food products that traditionally contain high levels of NaCl. The research mostly focussed on the commercial seaweed species Ascophyllum nodosum and Saccharina latissima. A combination of physical & enzymatic processing was used to “unlock” the important flavour components.
Outcomes
The potential to use enzymatic hydrolysis to produce flavour extracts from brown seaweeds was demonstrated using a novel combination of Alg3 alginase and Umamizyme (Amano Enzyme). Alg3 was developed by project partners MATIS. It is a thermostable enzyme that originates from Rhodothermus marinus and catalyses the depolymerisation of alginate. The process was used successfully on whole seaweed and produced extracts that imparted umami like taste with mouthfeel and no odour issues. For a summary of the project click this link.
The TASTE project has since been taken further by MATIS and is published. Jensen et al. (2022). New wave of flavours – On new ways of developing and processing seaweed flavours, International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science, Volume 29, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijgfs.2022.100566.
Other seaweed projects
- Flavouring & taste components of Irish seaweed
- Potential anti-cancer properties of seaweed extracts
- EU HYFFI project
- EU SWAFAX project
- Flavouring & taste components of Irish seaweed
- Potential anti-cancer properties of seaweed extracts
- EU “taste” project
- EU “hyffi” project
- EU “swafax” project
- – See more at: http://www.cybercolloids.net/about-us/project-examples#sthash.LuiDFn2M.dpuf