Increase the shelf life of food products with natural and clean label antimicrobials

The proposed project is to develop an innovative, clean label and effective technology as an alternative to traditional chemical preservatives. To do this, we will use bacteriocins (antimicrobial peptides) and other fermentation by-products having broad antimicrobial action spectra and allowing to act as microbiological barriers directly on food in order to develop a broad spectrum solution allowing to reduce the total flora of the food before its final packaging, and thus significantly increase its shelf life. This project will focus on fresh food products that are sensitive to this spoilage flora, such as seafood products. The goal will also be to develop a solution that will be considered as a technological agent by the regulatory authorities and thus to always have a clean label solution.

Overall, we will develop 2 processes: (1) a fermentation process using seafood industry by-products to produce the broad- spectrum antimicrobial. (2) This antimicrobial will increase the shelf life of sensitive marine products such as crab, lobster and shrimp. These have a short lifespan at cost, any increase to this level will have a major impact on the value chain of these products.