Project: Nutraceuticals from Icelandic Seaweed
The aim is of this project is to develop innovative functional ingredients from brown seaweed for use in nutraceutical food supplements by scaling up and optimizing extraction of bioactive compounds and characterize their bioactive properties to demonstrate possible health benefits. The project also involves market analysis and generation of a marketing and sales plan for the new products. The ultimate goal of the project is to sustainably utilize a highly underutilized resource in Iceland, seaweeds, for significant value creation._x000D__x000D_The Nordic countries have vast resources of seaweeds which are currently hardly being utilized. For example, in Iceland there is no value added final processing of active ingredients from seaweeds despite significant opportunities to do so. Out of an estimated many millions of metric tons of biomass of seaweeds in Iceland there are less than 20.000 tons of marine seaweeds harvested, a minute fraction of what could be safely harvested and utilized. This seaweed is now simply dried and sold for low value uses, with little attempt at getting the full value potential out of the raw material. Our research has clearly demonstrated that marine seaweeds contain highly active ingredients (antioxidant activity, anti-inflammatory activity, etc) which can find many different applications in the food, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industry. Many countries outside Scandinavia have recognized the great potential of seaweed based ingredients, particularly Asian countries. At the same time Iceland sits on enormous seaweed resources, among the most pristine in the world, without a real effort to create value and value added products from the high value ingredients that can be produced from seaweeds. _x000D__x000D_There is a significant global demand for ingredients from seaweeds and products made with these ingredients. The demand for natural active ingredients has grown greatly over the past years and market predictions show an even greater increase in the years to come. There is a growing group of consumers who is seeking food supplements and/or supplemented foods (i.e. functional foods) with verified bioactivity and possible preventative effects on diseases (e.g. cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes etc). The applicants strongly believe that there is a firm place for seaweed based ingredients to help fill the market demand for new natural ingredients. For new seaweed based ingredients and products made with them to compete successfully with other natural ingredients and products it is essential to conduct high quality research and development (R&D) work along with working closely with potential user groups as well as mapping the market. Over the past few years the applicants have developed processes on a laboratory scale to extract highly bioactive ingredients from Icelandic seaweed and investigated their bioactivities and composition in detail. The goal of this project is to bring this technology to market, by developing and scaling up processes to successfully extract these ingredients and develop new products and uses for them. The project also has a significant marketing and consumer component, to do the groundwork to get the products to market. This work, if successful, is predicted to lead to significant advances in more utilization of marine seaweeds for significant value creation and eventually a new flourishing industry in Iceland, and other European countries with significant seaweed resources. _x000D__x000D_This project will be carried out by two RTD SME companies, Marinox in Iceland and Due Miljo in Norway, and one research institute, Matis in Iceland. _x000D__x000D_Marinox is an innovative SME company established in 2011 after extensive research of seaweeds and their bioactivities by the company founders. The company is one of its kind in Iceland and already produces seaweed extracts and cosmetic products based on seaweed extracts (www.unaskincare.com). Marinox aims to develop a range of different seaweed extracts and compounds extracted from seaweeds to be used as functional ingredients in foods or as dietary supplements. _x000D__x000D_Due Miljo is a company that has great engineering expertise in developing molecular separation processes and engineering/installing industrial plants for processing of biomolecules, including marine biomolecules. The company has particularly strong expertise in membrane separation processes, which will be at the heart of the processes developed in this project. Due Miljo already has significant experience with micro and macroalgae (seaweed) processing._x000D__x000D_Matis is the leading research and development institute in the area of food and biotechnology in Iceland. Matis works closely with all sectors of the food processing industry and stakeholders through the entire value chain and has good relations with the food and consumer products industry. The institute has systematically been studying various properties of seaweed for the last 6 years including bioactive properties and food applications._x000D_
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Acronym
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NUTRIS
(Reference Number: 8624)
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Duration
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01/09/2013 - 31/08/2016
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Project Topic
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The aim of the project is development, production and marketing of novel nutraceuticals (food supplements) from Icelandic brown seaweed. The goal is to scale up processes to produce seaweed derived polyphenols and polysaccharides (fucoidans) and bringing them successfully to market.
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Network
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Eurostars
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Call
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Eurostars Cut-Off 10
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Project partner
