An important milestone has been reached by the partners in the center for research-based innovation, Foods of Norway: a successful industrial scale-up of 1,600 kg of yeast produced from sugars from Norwegian spruce trees. Production was a joint effort by Lallemand Animal Nutrition, Borregaard and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), all partners in Foods of Norway at NMBU.
Sugar from Norwegian spruce trees was produced by biorefinery company Borregaard, and this was used to grow the yeast at the Lallemand production site in Estonia. The processes could be scaled up thanks to the extensive work done by scientists at NMBU and Lallemand, coordinated by Foods of Norway. The yeast will be used in large-scale feeding trials with pigs and Atlantic salmon, in collaboration with leading feed companies in Foods of Norway.
“We are entering an exciting phase where we will be evaluating yeast in diets for salmon in seawater and piglets under farm conditions,” said Professor Margareth Øverland, head of Foods of Norway. “Our work in Foods of Norway follows the entire value chain from the tree biomass to the final meat and fish products. The larger-scale trials will provide important information on how these novel feeds will affect growth, health and product quality of the animals as well as the production cost and sustainability of using these ingredients.”
“We are proud of this important milestone on our journey towards the development of alternative feed ingredients using local Norwegian resources. There is still a lot to be done before commercial development can be realized, but this achievement reinforces the technical feasibility of the concept developed through Foods of Norway towards a more sustainable feed production,” said Mathieu Castex, director of Research and Development at Lallemand Animal Nutrition.
Gudbrand Rødsrud, technology director at Borregaard, said that “this large-scale production experiment demonstrates the opportunities that exist for developing sustainable feed products from wood and it will enable documentation of business potentials through large scale feeding trials.”
Ildar Nisamedtinov, vice president of research and development at Lallemand, said, “our partners at NMBU have previously carried out thorough studies when it comes to using Borregaard’s spruce syrup in the cultivation of different yeast species. That knowledge was a good starting point for us to further design and optimize the process that could be industrially utilized. In my opinion, this is an excellent example of how collaboration between academia and industry can lead to new products.”
