SBIR Phase I: Development of Unique Flavor Peptide Ingredients to Create Authentic, Sustainable, and Cost-effective Plant-based Food Products

这项小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的广泛影响将创造新的肉类替代品。这个项目推进了一个过程，以创造与真正的肉一样的真实味道和质地的无动物产品。该项目将开发四种不同的化学品，用于生产各种肉类风味，特别是在脂肪系统中，并开发一种新颖的先进方法，用于植物性食品应用的第一个真正正宗的牛肉风味。这将降低新的和多样化的替代无肉食品的风险和行业成本。拟议的项目提供了一种新的策略，通过解锁精确发酵和肽封装的力量，解决目前植物性食品市场缺乏的现有风味概况的局限性。技术挑战包括表征未知的“肉质”国米肽的特性，以及确定稳定捕获被封装的鲜味（BMP）和国米肽所需的封装参数。拟议的研发将(1)生成一种先进的封装协议来捕获肽，以产生植物性食品中没有的独特风味特征；(2)定义封装肽的物理和化学特性，以确定其在各种食品介质中的有效性和稳定性；(3)为植物性食品开发第一个真正正宗的牛肉风味特征。研究目标包括：(1)制备和表征BMP和kokumi肽，(2)测量BMP和四种kokumi肽的化学稳定性，(3)测量BMP和kokumi在肉汤和炸薯条模型系统中的风味特征。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will create new meat alternatives. This project advances a process to create animal-free products with the same authentic taste and textures as real meat. The project will develop four different chemicals for producing various meat flavor profiles, and especially in fat systems, and a novel advanced method for the first true authentic beef flavor profile for plant-based food applications. This will lower the risk and industry costs for new and diverse alternative meatless food products. The proposed project offers a new strategy to address the limitations of existing flavor profiles currently lacking in the plant-based food market by unlocking the power of precision fermentation and peptide encapsulation. Technical challenges include characterizing the unknown “meaty” kokumi peptides properties and identifying the encapsulation parameters necessary for stable capture of both encapsulated umami (BMP) and kokumi peptides. The proposed R&D will (1) generate an advanced encapsulation protocol to capture peptides to produce unique flavor profiles not found in plant-based foods, (2) define the physical and chemical properties of the encapsulated peptides to determine their validity and stability in various food media, and (3) develop first true authentic beef flavor profile for plant-based foods. Research objectives include: (1) formulate and characterize the BMP and kokumi peptides, (2) measure the chemical stability of the encapsulated BMP and four kokumi peptides, (3) measure the encapsulated BMP and kokumi authentic meaty flavor profile in broth and French fry model systems.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.