Upcycling with yeasts: meet NovelYeast

About B-Resilient

B-Resilient is a European innovation project aimed at making SMEs in the food industry more resilient through optimal use of biomass. The project focuses on the optimal use of raw materials through valorization of by-product streams into a variety of bio-based applications. In this project, 1.12 million euros was made available to support European SMEs through project lump sums. These lump sums could be used as travel budgets to participate in the matchmaking event in May 2023 (travel lump sums), to do feasibility studies, validation research and implementation studies etc. (innovation lump sums or business continuity plan lump sums), or to internationalize (internationalization lump sums).

Through the activities organized by B-Resilient, companies get access to a lot of information and inspiration from home and abroad, new contacts can be made and financial support is offered. This in turn can result in taking concrete steps towards the valorization of by-product streams in food companies. This is also the case at NovelYeast.

NovelYeast is a Belgian spin-off from VIB and KU Leuven

NovelYeast bv is a spin-off from the previous research group of Em. Prof. Johan Thevelein at the VIB/KU Leuven. With this company, Johan aims to use his extensive knowledge and technical know-how on yeast research and its many industrial applications to develop superior industrial yeast strains and their commercial implementation.  

For example, NovelYeast wants to use yeast strains in the development of industrial processes for the production of biofuels, bio-based chemicals, special sugars, meat-substituted vegetable proteins, sweetener proteins, single-cell proteins, alcoholic drinks, nutraceuticals, and probiotics. In addition, NovelYeast aims to provide research and development services for the use of yeast as a tool in industrial biotechnology and for medical and agro-industrial applications.  

A first major focus of the company is the development of second-generation enzyme-producing yeasts for the production of ethanol and isobutanol from lignocellulosic biomass and on-site production of the cellulolytic enzymes for saccharification of the biomass. A second major focus is the development of modified yeast strains for the production of healthy sweeteners and proteins, especially with underexploited by-products from the food industry.

HealthySweet 

NovelYeast was one of two Flemish SMEs (the other was Trotec, read the article here) that received grants in the first lump sum round of B-Resilient for an innovation project: HealthySweet. The project had a total budget of 27,000 euros.

The goal of HealthySweet was to develop a new process for upcycling all kinds of by-product streams from the food industry into high-quality alternative sweeteners that can be added to foods as a new ingredient or sold in pure form to consumers.

During the project, NovelYeast evaluated several starchy by-product streams for conversion into healthy sugar sweeteners, including stale bread, potatoes, pasta sheets, maize feed meal, grey starch and potato steam peels. The starch present in these by-product streams could be converted into free glucose, which was then converted into erythritol (a healthy sugar sweetener) using the yeast Moniliella pollinis. Although this process succeeded, the yield was not high enough for economically viable implementation on a commercial scale. Tests with another yeast that produced isomaltulose using sucrose as a substrate did give promising yields at pilot scale and that yeast will now be implemented at commercial scale. Finally, development of a yeast for producing allulose with glucose as substrate was also started during the project.

Expected benefits

Using by-product streams from the food industry as substrates for the production of alternative sugar and protein sweeteners has two advantages:

1. it offers a new way to upcycle by-product streams by giving them a higher value than their current use for animal feed, biogas production or composting
2. it provides a cheaper substrate source for the production of alternative sweeteners, which will facilitate their commercialisation on a wider market. Nowadays alternative sweeteners are often made using pure sugars as substrates. 

Future

The B-Resilient project HealthySweet has ended, but NovelYeast is continuing to work on developing a new process for erythritol production in a follow-up project SweetHealth, and is pushing further into allulose production. To this end, they have entered into a collaboration with Bioxytol (Arevalo, Spain).