Post-pandemic sustainability of the Canadian pork industry: upgrading by-products to added-value goods. From feed to food and advanced purified hydrogels for cosmetics and health

加拿大猪肉行业是一个相当大的行业，每年有263亿加元，涉及至少25,000名加拿大工人。早在疫情爆发之前，它就面临着许多挑战，包括2018年中国出现非洲猪瘟导致价格大幅波动，随后中国于2019年对加拿大猪肉实施禁令。随后，新冠肺炎大流行及其迅速进化的自然病毒到来，给加拿大猪肉行业带来了额外的挑战。对动物出口的限制、物流限制以及屠宰场、餐馆和食品服务的关闭对肉类供应链的所有阶段都产生了不利影响。农民们找不到合适的市场来出售他们的活动物。由于加工厂关闭，肉类加工能力也有所下降。不幸的是，疫情的结束并不意味着2021年经济复苏导致玉米和小麦等原料价格上涨近50%的长期危机周期的结束，这主要是由于中国需求的爆炸性增长。让情况变得复杂的是，与新冠肺炎相关的限制的放松可能会支持经济复苏，一方面推高石油、天然气的价格，进而推高谷物化肥的价格，另一方面，奥米克隆变种的威胁可能会给该行业带来新的危机。全球动物蛋白产业面临着前所未有的挑战，人口增长预计将使食品需求增加48.6%1。在全球范围内，大约44%的肉用猪不是人类消费的。该项目预计将通过重复利用这些非食用副产品并在当地增加价值，极大地提高加拿大猪肉行业的竞争力和整体可持续性。我们建议使用高效的蛋白质提取和转化来生产：1)生物活性多肽作为饲料中抗生素的替代品和食品中的添加剂；2)副产物生物质发酵产生的代谢物；3)高度可注射的水凝胶，能够快速凝胶化，并在再生医学和细胞移植领域中提供刺激局部再生的细胞和生长因子。

The Canadian pork industry represents a considerable industry of 26,3 billion of CDN$ annually, involving at least 25,000 Canadians workers. Already before the pandemic, it faced many challenges including high volatility of the prices due to the emergence of African swine fever in China in 2018, followed by the imposition of a ban on Canadian pork by China in 2019. Then the COVID-19 pandemic arrived with its rapidly evolving nature virus, inducing additional challenges to the Canadian pork meat industry. The limitations on animal exportation, logistics restrictions, and the shutting down of slaughterhouses, restaurants, and food services adversely affected all stages of the meat supply chain. Farmers were unable to find a suitable market to sell their live animals. Meat processing capacity also decreased due to the closure of the processing plants. Unfortunately, the end of the pandemic is not the end of a long cycle of crisis with the economic recovery in 2021 which has resulted in an almost 50% increase in the prices of ingredients like corn and wheat, due mainly to the explosion in Chinese demand. To complicate the situation, the easing of restrictions linked to COVID-19 is likely to support the economic recovery, pushing up the prices of oil, gas and, consequently, grain fertilizers on the one hand, and on the other hand, the threat of the Omicron variant could generate a new crisis in the industry. The global animal protein industry faces an unprecedented challenge with population growth that is predicted to increase food demand by 48.6%1. Globally, about 44% of pig raised for meat is not consumed by humans. This project is expected to tremendously increase the competitiveness of the Canadian pork industry, and its overall sustainability, by reusing and add value locally to these nonedible by-products. We propose to use efficient protein extraction and transformation to produce: 1) bioactive peptides as replacement of antibiotics in feed and additives in food, 2) metabolites coming from biomass fermentation of the by-product, and 3) highly injectable hydrogels able to gel rapidly and deliver cells and growth factors that stimulate local regeneration in the field of regenerative medicine and cell transplantation.