A healthy, balanced diet has a fundamental role in preventing a large range of chronic diseases and contributes to prolong life quality with obvious benefits for the individual as well as for the society. Aquaculture production plays a substantial role in this perspective because fish is an important source of well-balanced proteins and important nutrients such as marine-derived omega-3 fatty acids. However, its sustainability generates concerns as farmed fish diet is largely based on fishmeal and fish oil. Consumer and environmental groups demand a continued move towards alternative feeds. Objective of this project is to develop a next generation 3D culture platform that accurately mimics the complex functions of the intestinal mucosa. Its purpose is to make available a technology for predicting the health and nutritional value of innovative components of aquafeeds. Current methods are lengthy, expensive and requires the use of large number of animals. Furthermore, they do not provide the knowledge of the cellular and molecular mechanisms determining the final effect of each meal on the fish. This lack of mechanistic knowledge severely limits our capacity to understand and predict the biological value of the single raw material and of their different combinations. We propose to develop new ad hoc biomaterials to create a 3D scaffold where to grow and differentiate a complete population of intestinal epithelial cells. Combining state of the art notions on fish nutrition will lead to a fully functional prototype of artificial intestine (Fish-AI) that will enable the feed industry to predict accurately and efficiently the health and nutritional value of alternative feed sources substantially improving European aquaculture sustainability and competitiveness. The project fosters cross-fertilisation and synergy among nutrition physiology, bioengineering, cell and stem cell biology to develop innovative technologies for a sustainable livestock production.

For decades, Europe has been facing a huge protein deficit (more than 70% is imported). Today, the objective is to initiate ways to sustainably produce proteins in Europe, by creating new cross-sectorial businesses. Partners within the consortium have been developing a bio-refinery concept allowing transformation of woody biomass into high-value Single Cell Protein (SCP) to be used as animal feed. The SYLFEED project consists in upscaling the bio-refinery process to ensure successful demonstration of Arbiom Wood to Food technology consisting in converting lignocellulose into SCP for use in aquaculture. SYLFEED will demonstrate the synergies between forestry industry and protein fish feed market, creating new high value opportunities for the former and an alternative, sustainable, protein source for the latter. Wood residues are abundant and highly sustainable and SCP present an amino-acid profile close to that of the fishes, making them an excellent raw material in fish feed formulation (there is room for more than 50 lignocellulose bio-refineries in Europe, leading to the production of at least 1.4 Mt of proteins and a significant reduction of the protein gap). SYLFEED spans across the full value chain: from biomass stakeholder to fish feed sellers (future buyers of SYLFEED proteins), including biomass-to-SCP technology developer/ experts. SYLFEED’s ambition is threefold: - To respond to strategic needs of protein production in Europe to increase self-sufficiency. - To improve the local economy (forest industry), save jobs in important industrial sectors and create new ones in the bio-economy. - To produce proteins for fish feed in a way that addresses local and global environmental issues (oceans overexploitation and negative effects of plant’s culture – soybean, corn...). To do so, the grand challenge of the SYLFEED demonstration project is to upscale from pilot scale and validate the bio-refinery process that converts lignocellulose into SCP suitable to formulate fish feed.

Our SynoProtein project aims to develop, mature and demonstrate a novel carbon-negative process that enables high value creation from sawmill by-products through carbon capture and use (CCU). The consortium has developed an innovative process for the vertical integration of by-products from sawmill industry, i.e. feedstocks comprising only residues (no sawlogs), and conversion into fish feed ingredients, i.e. single cell protein (SCP), along with the production of biochar for animal feed. Thus, our process can provide novel, sustainable protein sources, as opposed to conventional energy- and climate-intensive soybean and resource-limited wild fish protein production routes to meet future demands. SynoProtein will demonstrate that 1.25 tons (t) of CO2-e can be captured from syngas via CCU for each dry-ton sawmill by-products processed. This clearly makes our SynoProtein innovation unique and is why it will introduce a green paradigm shift for the recycling and commercialisation of low-value by-products feedstocks into high-value bio-products. This project joins together a balanced consortium of 11 partners, covering the whole SynoProtein value chain, from industry, academia, and research institutes, which spread to 4 different European countries (Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Germany), but with worldwide operation with their sister companies. Overall, we expect carbon capture of 200kt of CO2-e from syngas annually with our process by 2033, recovering 160kt/year of forest residues and producing 120kt/year of fish/animal feed for industry, valued at €175m. This also represents 260 jobs created in EU and reduced 120kt per year imported feed ingredient from other continents. Compared to fish feed production from soybeans, our SynoProtein is also expected to save carbon emission of 458kt CO2-e, land use of 147km2, and water use of 630,700m3 by 2033. It fits strongly with the mission of the CBE JU “advancing a competitive bioeconomy for a sustainable future”.