Functional processing of cultivated seaweeds for novel food products

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.

The consortium consists of four research partners (SINTEF, Lund University,Aalborg University, Fraunhofer IMTE), one public body (Marine centre Simrishams municipality) and two industry partners (Seaweed Solutions, Bettafish) representing four countries (Norway,Sweden, Denmark, and Germany) and will utilize marine resources from the Atlantic Ocean andBaltic Sea. Key technologies in the project include biomass cultivation and pre-processing, enzymatic and microbial processing, food technology, and environmental analysis.

The FunSea project will develop new knowledge, methodology and prototypes based on renewable and sustainable marine biomasses, contributing to the growth of the blue economy, development of scientific excellence, and solutions toward key societal challenges.

In Funsea, The Department of Sustainability of Planning of AAU leads a Work Package on Life Cycle analysis and technical-economic analysis of novel processes to evaluate not only the process requirements of energy and materials, and related environmental impacts, but also the scalability and commercial feasibility. Moreover, the analysis of barriers and opportunities in current regulation for use of seaweed in novel ingredients will be mapped. Main deliverables will be a market analysis regarding the availability of biomass and sidestreams, a screening and then full LCA of sustainable seaweed products and ingredients, as well as an overview of regulatory aspects for novel products.

FunSea is financed by the Sustainable Blue Economy Partnership, part of the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Commission, and by Innovation Fund Denmark with a total project grant of 1.3 M euro of which 300 k euro granted to AAU.