Developing Case Studies for Undergraduates: Valorization of Fruit and Vegetable By products for New Product Development

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimated that one-third of the edible food produced for human consumption is wasted each year, equating to almost 1.3 billion metric tons. In developing and industrialized countries, food losses and waste cost $310 billion and roughly $680 billion each year, respectively. Fruit and vegetable processing industries produce waste that could be diverted from landfills and converted for utilization into animal and human food products. Therefore, there is an opportunity to find value in fruit and vegetable under-utilized byproducts such as carrot waste from carrot juice making (carrot pomace) or byproduct of peeling and cutting of ready-to eat carrot products such as peeled baby carrots (carrot mash). Carrot waste is particularly unique because it is often edible and nutrient dense. The main goal of this project is to develop solutions to create new and innovative sustainable food products with added health benefits to help reduce the waste generated by some of the major food industries in California. The proposed solution will encompass the creation and evaluation of new food products applying consumer research, valorization of food processing byproducts, traditional fermentation, and nanotechnology principles. The CoPI at CSUN will be focusing on traditional fermentation. Specific Objectives (CSUN) a. Develop an enzymatic treatment to hydrolyze carrot waste (mash and pomace) into a mix of oligosaccharides and simple sugars. The enzymatic hydrolyzation method established by Dr. Amin at Cal Poly SLO to breakdown complex carbohydrates will be modified to increase the concentration of oligosaccharides and simple sugars in carrot mash and pomace. Enzymatic hydrolyzation will consist of using an enzymatic cocktail of cellulase, hemicellulose, xylanase and pectinase. b. Use hydrolyzed carrot mash and pomace to make a carotene rich kombucha and a fermented carrot-based ingredient. Hydrolyzed carrot mash and pomace will be used as the SCOBY?s source of sucrose to produce a kombucha drink. Brix, pH, titratable acidity, color, b-carotene and phenolic content will be measured in the fermented drink. c. Create cases of study related to the development of novel sustainable fermented beverages.