Functional processing of cultivated seaweeds for novel food products

A pressing challenge today is feeding the growing world population in a sustainable way.

Current food systems cause environmental problems (e.g. biodiversity loss, greenhouse gas emissions, water usage and pollution). Healthy, safe, food resources that do not compromise biodiversity are needed to reduce these problems.

Cultivated macroalgae can contribute to sustainable food systems, but face challenges in penetrating western markets due to their sensory properties, low nutritional content and knowledge gaps regarding safety and health benefits.

FunSea (a consortium including SINTEF, Seaweed Solutions, Lund University, Marine Centre Simrishamn, Aalborg University, Fraunhofer IMTE and Bettafish from the countries Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany) will enhance innovative development of food prototypes toward a wide European market by focusing on nutritional quality, safety and functional properties of ingredients from cultivated brown and green algae, produced by sustainable technologies, also utilizing side streams/residuals from aquaculture industries.

FunSea will assess environmental, economic, and regulatory aspects along the value chain (biomass to products) and focus on developing key technologies including biomass cultivation, enzymatic/microbial (pre)processing, food technology and environmental analysis.

New knowledge, methodologies and prototypes will evolve, contributing to blue growth, developing scientific excellence, and solutions for key societal challenges.