One of our most pressing societal challenges today is feeding the growing world population in a sustainable manner. The present global food system causes major environmental problems, including land degradation, loss of biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions, water usage and pollution. There is thus a great need for novel food resources that are healthy, safe, and nutritious, and at the same time have a smaller impact on the planet’s climate and ecosystems. Cultivated macroalgae are a staple of the Asian diets and can have a bigger contribution to more sustainable food systems, but still faces challenges in penetrating western markets due to an inherently low nutritional content, low versatility, and inclusion rates in foods because of sensory properties, lacking innovation in product development, and knowledge gaps regarding safety and health benefits.
The FunSea project aims to enhance nutritional quality, safety and functional properties of cultivated brown and green algae as food ingredients, through development of new sustainable processing technologies and utilization of side streams and residual biomass from seaweed production as well as other aquaculture industries and fisheries. The project will further develop and characterize novel food prototypes toward a wide European market, and assess environmental, economic, and regulatory aspects along the value chain from biomass production to finished products.
Partners
- SINTEF Industry (Coordinator, NO)
- Seaweed Solutions (NO)
- Marint Centrum, Simrishamn Municipality (SE)
- Lund University (SE)
- University of Aalborg (DK)
- Fraunhofer IMTE (GER)
- Wunderfish GmBH (GER)
The project is financed through the first call of the Sustainable Blue Economy Partnership.