Biotechnology could provide a more environmentally sustainable alternative to egg protein production
(News from Nanower) Egg protein is one of the most important protein ingredients in the food industry. A first assessment of the environmental impact of fungal egg white protein production – ovalbumin Trichoderma reesei shows that ovalbumin produced by precision fermentation reduced the need for land use by almost 90% and greenhouse gases by 31-55% compared to the production of chicken-based counterpart.
A study by the University of Helsinki’s Future Sustainable Food Systems research group together with VTT shows that the ovalbumin produced by the fungus could alleviate the environmental impact associated with egg white powder. This is particularly the case for the use of low-carbon energy sources in production (Natural food, “Ovalbumin production from Trichoderma reesei culture and low carbon energy could mitigate the environmental impact of egg-based ovalbumin”).
Egg white powder is a commonly used ingredient in the food industry due to its high quality protein. Annual consumption of egg proteins in 2020 was about 1.6 million tonnes and the market is expected to grow further in the coming years.
Growing demand raises questions about both sustainability and ethics. Parts of the egg white powder production chain, such as the rearing of chickens for egg production, cause high levels of greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to water scarcity, biodiversity loss and deforestation. In addition, intensive chicken farming has led to the outbreak of zoonotic diseases by acting as an important repository of human pathogens.
The search for sustainable alternatives to animal proteins has been of growing interest in the food industry. Cell culture, also called precision fermentation when used in the production of recombinant ingredients, provides a biotechnology-based solution to decouple animal protein production from animal production using a microbial production system to produce certain proteins.
“For example, more than half of the protein content of egg white is ovalbumin. VTT has succeeded in producing ovalbumin with filamentous fungi Trichoderma reesei. The gene, which contains drawings of ovalbumin, is transferred by modern biotechnological tools to a fungus that then produces and secretes the same protein as the chickens. The ovalbumin protein is then separated from the cells, concentrated and dried to the final functional product, says Dr. Emilia Nordlund from VTT.
Cell culture products generally require more electricity than typical agricultural products, and therefore the type of energy used affects the level of environmental impact. However, the amount of agricultural inputs needed to produce microbial ovalbumin – such as glucose – is generally much lower per kilogram of protein powder.
“According to our study, this means that ovalbumin produced by the sponge reduced the need for land use by almost 90 per cent and greenhouse gases by 31 to 55 per cent compared to the production of chicken-based counterpart. In the future, when production is based on low-carbon energy, precision fermentation has the potential to reduce the impact by up to 72 percent, says Dr. Natasha Järviö from the University of Helsinki.
In terms of the environmental impact of water use, the results were less convincing and showed a high dependence on the presumed location of the ovalbumin production site. Overall, the study shows that precision fermentation technology has the potential to increase the sustainability of protein production, which can be further enhanced by the use of low-carbon energy sources.