The European Union’s EIT Food organisation’s “Innovation Impact Award” was won by a project that developed a novel sugar substitute based on the smart enhancement of sweet proteins found in tropical fruits.
One of the project collaborators, Amai Protein, produces designer proteins using computational protein design and production through precise fermentation. Since these proteins are 4000 to 11 000 times sweeter than sugar, they can be used in tiny amounts, thereby being cheaper than sugar per sweetness unit. Furthermore, they have glycaemic value of 0 and do not adversely affect the population of intestinal bacteria (the microbiome).
The winning technology is based on adding natural food ingredient agents – termed MicroPatching agents – or other food ingredients to produce a protein flavour as close to sugar’s as possible. This should result in significantly reduced sugar consumption, and in turn its health and environmental impacts.
The researchers tackled several challenges including improving the taste and eliminating an aftertaste; protein stability; competitive pricing and adverse health effects. According to the research leader, Professor Yoav D. Livney at the Israel Institute of Technology, “winning the Impact Award will help us advance towards commercialization of the technology and consequently reduce sugar consumption in Israel and around the world.”
