To identify the hurdles and bottlenecks, which prevents exploitation of seafood side-streams, an industry and a consumer survey have been carried out and the findings were: 1) That the seafood industry acknowledges that close to 100% of its side-streams (both liquid and solid) can be handled in a way that ensures their quality and therefore can be used for human consumption. However, the seafood industry needs the help of academia/technology providers to implement new technologies to upcycle side-streams into new food ingredients, 2) Many consumers are willing to buy foods that contain ingredients made from seafood raw materials, and it is important to many consumers that food is environmentally friendly.
Currently, herring side-streams are not sorted into different fractions, which makes it impossible to use the different types of side-streams for purposes other than fish meal and oil. A sorting technology for herring, which allows herring fillet producers to separate this fish into head, backbone, viscera + belly flap and tail, in addition to the fillet, has been implemented. The new side-streams have already formed the basis for new products based on mince from herring backbones at Sweden Pelagic. The mince is sold, among others, to school kitchens. Moreover, an antioxidant dipping technology based on rosemary extracts, which enables the preservation of seafood side-streams so that they can be used for the production of high-quality ingredients, has been developed. The technology has already been implemented at Sweden Pelagic for preservation of solid herring side-streams. Further, identification of the correct handling and storage procedures in some of the evaluated case studies (mussel cooking waters, by-catches and salmon side streams) has allowed correct preservation of these fractions, meeting food grade quality, enabling their use for high value applications.
WaSeaBi has developed two decision tools: 1) An app that guides the seafood producer on what to do with their side-stream based on the information that is entered into the app about the raw material, the side-stream and the processes to which they were exposed. The app includes assessment of the technical, legal, environmental and economic aspects of this process. A bias correction tool has also been implemented into this decisions tool. The debias tool will ensure the best possible evaluation of the data entered in the decision tool. The tool has been validated on two company cases, 2) The so-called Value Chain Navigator tool, which identifies the optimal logistics and processing technologies for handling the side-streams throughout the value chain. It was used on the selected value chains in WaSeaBi.
Different approaches to develop new ingredients from seafood side-streams have been used. First the technologies were developed and evaluated in lab scale. Subsequently, the most promising technologies were upscaled:
• The so-called pH shift technology for production of protein concentrates from herring solid side-streams has been upscaled to pilot scale with success at Sweden Pelagic.
• Recovery of a savoury ingredient from mussel cooking water using a membrane concentration technology, which at the same time reduces the freshwater eutrophication of the cooking water. The technology has successfully been implemented at Pescados Marcelinos in full scale.
• Extraction of savoury ingredients with umami flavour from cod, salmon, herring and hake side-streams by the use of enzyme technology. The process with salmon side-streams has been upscaled to pilot scale at Barna.
• Extraction of protein hydrolysates rich in antioxidant and/or antihypertensive peptides from cod and undersized hake side-streams. The technology has been validated with undersized hake side-streams at pilot scale at AZTI.
• Development of mineral supplement with bioavailable calcium from bones obtained from hydrolysis processes. The technology has been validated with undersized-hake and salmon bones in pilot scale at AZTI.
• Evaluation of flocculation and separation technologies to recover protein and/or phosphorus from process water from cod or herring filet production. The technologies have been evaluated at Jeka Fish and Sweden Pelagic.
The environmental and economic sustainability assessments of selected value chains have identified the main challenges in relation to the final application of the developed technologies, but have also demonstrated their great potential.
An EU regulatory guideline that can be used by the industry when developing new ingredients from seafood side-streams has been developed and will be available on the WaSeaBi homepage for another 5 years.
WaSeaBi results have been widely disseminated through the WaSeaBi website (ca. 12.000 sessions during the project period) and partner websites, 14 newsletters, more than 140 posts on social media (with close to 1000 followers), WaSeaBi International Conference in April 2023, 7 transnational press releases, 20 scientific publications (and more to come) and more than 100 presentations at various events and conferences. Videos demonstrating the technologies developed are available on the WaSeaBi webpage for another 5 years.
