Renewable feedstocks food production

Converting renewable feedstocks into a mixture of products that can be used as such in the synthesis or formulation of end-products. This approach is widely used in food and feed industries where there is no requirement to prepare specific molecules from bio-resources but rather mixtures of triglycerides, carbohydrates and proteins. 

Both in the USA and the EU, the introduction of renewable fuels standards is likely to increase considerably the consumption of bioethanol. Lignocelluloses from agricultural and forest industry residues and/or the carbohydrate fraction of municipal solid waste (MSW) will be the future source of biomass, but starch-rich sources such as corn grain (the major raw material for ethanol in USA) and sugar cane (in Brazil) are currently used. Although land devoted to fuel could reduce land available for food production, this is at present not a serious problem, but could become progressively more important with increasing use of bioethanol. For this reason, it is important to utilize other crops that could be cultivated in unused land (an important social factor to preserve rural populations) and, especially, start to use cellulose-based feedstocks and waste materials as raw material. 

Special attention is given to the integration of biocatalysis with chemocatalysis, i.e., the combined use of enzymatic with homogeneous and/or heterogeneous catalysis in cascade conversions. The complementary strength of these forms of catalysis offers novel opportunities for multi-step conversions in concert for the production of speciality chemicals and food ingredients. In particular, multi-catalytic process options for the conversion of renewable feedstock into chemicals will be discussed on the basis of several carbohydrate cascade processes that are beneficial for the environment. 

Another area is the production of chemical intermediates from renewable feedstocks. Cargill-Dow and Dupont are just two of the companies beginning to market biobased polymers and plastics to replace petroleum based polymers. Again, the fermentation fundamentals originally developed for food manufacturing continue to apply to a wide variety of products. 

Intermediate in volume and economics are the food ingredients, such as enzymes, acids for preservation, amino acids, and vitamins. These have been marketed for reasons of added nutritional value, longer preservation, need for convenience foods, and better taste. Typically these are specialty products with a bigger market volume, but still limited need for renewable feedstock. 

The availability of renewable feedstock is continuously being debated. There are governmental mandates and subsidies that stimulate growth of the field, but also there are public concerns that biofuels do not, or only to a limited extent, contribute to a reduction in global warming. Further, the growing world population needs more agricultural products for food and animal feed, and the competition between food and fuel presents difficult dilemmas. 

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