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

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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.