WaSeaBi has now been running for more than 2 ½ years and in 2021 a lot of interesting results are emerging.

In 2021, we have particularly focused on the following topics:

• Successful implementation of a sorting technology for herring, which allows Sweden Pelagic to separate herring into head, backbone, viscera + belly flap, tail in addition to the fillet. The new side-streams can form the basis for development of new products at Sweden Pelagic.
  
  
• Completion of development of new solutions to prolong the shelf life of side-streams from cod and herring before they are used for the production of new products. In 2021, the focus has particularly been on the use of rosemary extracts as antioxidants to prevent lipid oxidation. Dipping the side-streams in either a commercial (Duralox Manc) or a non-commercial rosemary extract have proven highly efficient.
  
  
• We have continued the development of the so-called AHP tool, which will help seafood producers to make the optimal decision about how to use their different side-streams based on the information they provide on different technical, legal, environmental and economical aspects. The tool will be validated with real cases from WaSeaBi in 2022. Work on the social and physicological aspects of decision making has also been initiated. This includes the development of methods to debias decision making, which will be integrated into the AHP tool.

• Development of technologies to convert seafood side-streams into new ingredients for the food and feed industry. We have investigated and optimized the use of i) different flocculants to recover proteins from cod and herring brine and ii) membrane filtration and vacuum evaporation to recover proteins from mussel cooking water.Furthermore, we have used the pH shift method to recover proteins from cod and herring brine, mussel cooking water as well as solid side-streams from cod and herring.
  
  This work demonstrated the good potential for using the pH shift technology to isolate proteins from solid side-streams whereas other techniques are more suitable for liquid side-streams. We have also studied the ability of a wide range of enzymes to produce bioactive peptides with antimicrobial, antioxidative or antihypertension properties from salmon and cod side-streams or whole hake. Likewise, enzymes have been evaluated for their ability to convert these side-streams into savoury ingredients. The results obtained for savoury ingredients were the most promising. All this work has been performed in small scale. More detailed description of the obtained results will follow in upcoming newsletters and updates on the WaSeaBi homepage.
  
  
• Preliminary environmental and economic life-cycle studies of certain technologies in WaSeaBi have been performed and will form the basis for the final studies on these aspects later in the project. This work has been conducted by our new partner, Gent University, who replaced Vertech in the beginning of 2021
  
  

What to expect from 2022

In 2022, WaSeaBi will particularly focus on upscaling the technologies described above and implement the most promising solutions at the facilities of the industrial partners. We will also complete the construction of theoretical value chain scenarios based on all the obtained results. This will include an assessment of the technical and economic potential of the created scenarios.

Next year, the AHP tool will be completed and the life cycle assessment and life cycle costing studies will continue at full speed. So, will publication and dissemination of results from WaSeaBi. So, do look out for upcoming scientific publications and presentations from WaSeaBi at various events.