NIZO – MARDI: Transforming coconut residue into value

NIZO created added-value products by fermentation using high throughput screening for the Malaysian agro-industry. The coconut cake, a by-product which is normally discarded, can be transformed into a drinkable product which can subsequently be sold locally in order to enhance the local diet.

NIZO Food Research and the Malaysian Agricultural Research & Development Institute (MARDI) have signed a contract research agreement to develop together functional food & beverage products derived from Malaysia’s agro by-products.

The exchange of document was done between Datuk Dr Abd. Shukor Bin Abd. Rahman, director general of MARDI and Ir. Nils Hijlkema, NIZO representative in Malaysia

The aim of the research collaboration performed by MARDI-NIZO was to develop functional food & beverage products derived from Malaysia’s agro by-products. These local agro by-products have been subjected to extensive research done by MARDI over the past years because of the interesting functional compounds they possessed.

NIZO would bring in its core expertise of fermentation using lactic acid bacteria isolated by MARDI from local environment and from NIZO’s own unique culture collection as well as probiotic bacteria that were expected to have the ability to fortify the end products. The project would cover improving functionality, taste, and texture, and identifying anti-microbial properties and growth stimulations properties of the foreseen products. Several phases of this project have been envisaged, where at the end of the project MARDI would be able to up-scale a cost effective fermentation process using Malaysia’s agro by-products.

The project would be executed at NIZO, Food Valley, the Netherlands, and knowledge transfer to MARDI’s researcher would secure effective implementation in Malaysia.

The IP (Intellectual Property) derived from this project would be owned by MARDI and in the future NIZO would give technical support on the pre-commercialisation process of these high value-added products.

In this study coconut cake, a by-product which is normally discarded, was valorised in a fermentation process. Bacteria were identified which, in a short space of time, are capable of fermenting the coconut cake into a refreshing drink containing a high level of vitamins and a low tendency to perish – and all without the addition of preservatives and/or synthetic vitamins. In the food-grade NIZO Processing Centre, products were manufactured for consumer tests. In this case, fermentation is a good example of a very sustainable process: the coconut cake can be transformed locally into a drinkable product which can subsequently be sold locally in order to enhance the local diet.

(Source: www.fnbnews.com, vakbladvoedingsindustrie.nl)