Recipient Organization
IMVELA CORP.
141 FLUSHING AVE BLDG 77 STE 907
BROOKLYN,NY 112051338
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Dairy products are part of a healthy diet for ~80% of Americans. However they have a short shelf life due to microbial spoilage, making them expensive and restricting access to American citizens. In addition, consumers increasingly demand natural products and do not desire products with artificial chemical preservatives, which are extensively utilized in the dairy industry.Funded by this USDA Phase II SBIR award, we will develop a novel ingredient, a biopreservative, that can extend the shelf life of dairy products, starting with soft cheeses such as cottage cheese. We will employ our unique technology platform to optimize and deliver this ingredient. In particular, this research and development will make use of our extensive biobank of tens of thousands of natural microbes, state of the art measurement technologies targeted towards microbial spoilage, computational/machine learning approaches to select combinations of natural microbes, and advanced bioprocess manufacturing technologies for producing natural ingredients.If successful, this product and the ultimate outcome of the award would decrease food waste and increase food manufacturer distribution and product accessibility, in particular to low income consumers. We project this ingredient could generate ingredient sales for our company of 1-3M/year in the cottage cheese market after launch and up to 43M/year in the broader dairy industry at product line maturity.
Animal Health Component
0%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The goal of this award is to develop a biopreservative ingredient that extends the shelf life food products, starting with soft cheeses such as cottage cheese. Dairy products are part of a healthy diet for ~80% of Americans, providing essential protein, calcium, and vitamins. Dairy foods are highly susceptible to microbial spoilage, but chemical preservatives used in dairy foods are increasingly restricted, due to safety concerns. Thus, dairy manufacturers urgently need effective natural alternatives, known as "biopreservatives", which use microbial fermentation to naturally inhibit spoilage organism growth. Whereas chemical preservatives are single molecules with one antimicrobial mechanism of action (MoA), our product combines multiple MoA through rationally selected microbial communities, or "SupercultureTM ingredients" (SCI). Our USDA SBIR PhI research used computational methods and high-throughput screening to identify a novel lead antifungal ingredient. Preliminary Phase I characterization demonstrated that prototype performance significantly exceeds in-market leading biopreservative products and that ingredient production could be scaled up to pilot fermentor volumes. In this Phase II award, we will build on these exciting results by optimizing performance and production, to verify performance at commercial scales, enabling broad commercialization of this high performance biopreservative ingredient, and ultimately reducing spoilage of dairy products.To achieve this goal, we will pursue the following technical objectives (TOs):TO1: Optimize lead ingredient from PhI research and establish economic bioprocess for upstream and downstream manufacturing at commercial scales. Validate one SCI retains similar or better activity with locked-in upstream and downstream processes: production at 10L pilot scales and following spray drying.TO2: Optimize biopreservative performance via focused screening and iteration. Identify at least 3 new lead ingredients which provide 25% improvement in growth inhibition across ≥50% of high priority dairy spoilage organisms tested (ie 15+ strains) compared to current biopreservative solutions.TO3: Test efficacy biopreservative product in realistic dairy matrices. Validate PhI lead in preliminary pilot plant testing at the outset of PhII work, to inform baseline performance in real-world conditions. Internal benchtop application testing in cottage cheese matrix assay to select lead PhII SCI for advancement to 2nd round customer pilot plant trial. Demonstrate PhII lead hit SCI efficacy in full scale commercial pilot in customer plant: target >25% shelf life extension in accelerated shelf life assay. Validate lead SCI in at least one additional soft cheese matrix (>25% shelf life extension in challenge assay compared to current solution)
Project Methods
The key research efforts that will be conducted employ a range of state of the art methods:Bioprocess optimization of fermentation processes, including upstream fermentation and downstream product formulation. This work will utilize state of the art fermentation and bioprocess capacities for natural microorganisms that the company has unique access to. In particular this research will employ design of experiment approaches to reduce experimental burden based on established statistical approaches.High throughput screening and optimization of novel biopreservative ingredients. We will apply our extensive microbial biobank that contains many tens of thousands of unique, food safe, microorganisms to screen for novel ingredients with bioprotectant qualities. In particular, high throughput screening of the biobank against dozens of spoilage organisms and associated statistical analysis will be applied.Combinatorial optimization and assembly of meaningful strain combinations for enhanced ingredient performance. A variety of novel computational and bioinformatic techniques will be applied to the collected datasets to identify lead Superculture ingredients (combinations of natural strains) to advance to further optimization and validation.The key evaluation criteria of the product include:Quantitative measurement of growth inhibition of ingredient against a panel key dairy spoilage organisms (3 new lead ingredients which provide 25% improvement in growth inhibition across ≥50% of high priority dairy spoilage organisms tested)Technoeconomic analysis of the production efficiencies of the identified ingredient (meets internal economic targets for ingredient profitability)Validation of the efficacy of the ingredient in dairy matrices via accelerated and standard shelf life study assays (target >25% shelf life extension in challenge assay compared to current solution)