Agri-Food Waste Streams Utilization
for Development of More Sustainable
Food Substitutes
Sergiy Smetana, Kemal Aganovic, Stefan Irmscher and Volker Heinz
Abstract Substitution of food out of alternative biomass sources is aimed to supply
consumers with food products similar in nutrition and with lower environmental
impact compared to conventional products. At current state of development, meat
substitutes are not competitive with chicken meat, except for plant based meat
analogs (although they have weaker nutritional profile). Upscaling, further technological development and use of agri-food waste as main source substrate can
assure the environmental benefits of insects (2 kW h of energy, 1 kg CO 2 eq.,
1.5 m
2 of land and 0.1 m
3 of water) and single cell products (10 kW h, 2–4 kg CO 2
eq., 0.5 m
2 of land and 0.25 m
3 of water), making them more competitive compared to industrial chicken production. The results of the current research are
preliminary and further studies are required to assure the industrial applicability of
agri-food wastes use for food production.
1 Introduction
Food production is one of the most important human industries, which can be
responsible for a majority of environmental impacts in developed countries [1]. The
main causes for such impacts relate to overpopulation, growing demand for consumption of animal derived products and high rates of food waste. While some research
targets development of solutions for separate issues, more recent sources indicate the
need for a more holistic and systematic change of the complete food production chain
[2, 3]. The substitution of traditional foods with alternative analogs produced by
non-traditional methods is foreseen as one example of sustainable transitions [4].
However, considering a complete life cycle of food substitutes, their performance is not
always cost efficient and environmentally beneficial [5–7]. Therefore, a more sustainable status of food transitions should be confirmed with extensive research of economic
efficiency, environmental advances and social acceptability.
S. Smetana (&) Á K. Aganovic Á S. Irmscher Á V. Heinz
German Institute of Food Technologies, (DIL e.v.), Quakenbrück 49610, Germany
e-mail: s.smetana@dil-ev.de
© The Author(s) 2018
E. Benetto et al. (eds.), Designing Sustainable Technologies,
Products and Policies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66981-6_17
145
for Development of More Sustainable
Food Substitutes
Sergiy Smetana, Kemal Aganovic, Stefan Irmscher and Volker Heinz
Abstract Substitution of food out of alternative biomass sources is aimed to supply
consumers with food products similar in nutrition and with lower environmental
impact compared to conventional products. At current state of development, meat
substitutes are not competitive with chicken meat, except for plant based meat
analogs (although they have weaker nutritional profile). Upscaling, further technological development and use of agri-food waste as main source substrate can
assure the environmental benefits of insects (2 kW h of energy, 1 kg CO 2 eq.,
1.5 m
2 of land and 0.1 m
3 of water) and single cell products (10 kW h, 2–4 kg CO 2
eq., 0.5 m
2 of land and 0.25 m
3 of water), making them more competitive compared to industrial chicken production. The results of the current research are
preliminary and further studies are required to assure the industrial applicability of
agri-food wastes use for food production.
1 Introduction
Food production is one of the most important human industries, which can be
responsible for a majority of environmental impacts in developed countries [1]. The
main causes for such impacts relate to overpopulation, growing demand for consumption of animal derived products and high rates of food waste. While some research
targets development of solutions for separate issues, more recent sources indicate the
need for a more holistic and systematic change of the complete food production chain
[2, 3]. The substitution of traditional foods with alternative analogs produced by
non-traditional methods is foreseen as one example of sustainable transitions [4].
However, considering a complete life cycle of food substitutes, their performance is not
always cost efficient and environmentally beneficial [5–7]. Therefore, a more sustainable status of food transitions should be confirmed with extensive research of economic
efficiency, environmental advances and social acceptability.
S. Smetana (&) Á K. Aganovic Á S. Irmscher Á V. Heinz
German Institute of Food Technologies, (DIL e.v.), Quakenbrück 49610, Germany
e-mail: s.smetana@dil-ev.de
© The Author(s) 2018
E. Benetto et al. (eds.), Designing Sustainable Technologies,
Products and Policies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66981-6_17
145