Novel Proteins for Food and Feed
What will we eat tomorrow?
This Flagship Project Novel Proteins for Food and Feed aims to develop food innovations to provide new sources of sustainable and nutritious protein for a growing world population.
The challenge
By 2050, global food systems will need to meet the dietary demands of more than 10 billion people. In the world today, approximately one billion people have an inadequate protein supply while Westernized diets contain protein intake levels well over the daily requirement. Current methods of protein production are resource intensive, and it would be impossible for a global population of 10 billion people to eat the amount of meat typical of diets in North America and Europe and keep in line with the United Nations Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The goals
To identify, design and validate processes to enable microalgae derived proteins for food applications and insect proteins for use as feeds; as well as to provide a system-oriented assessment of these novel protein sources, including holistic sustainability quantification and consumer perception and acceptance.
Innovation areas
Click on an area to learn more about current innovative research.
Project news & highlights
January 2025
The research team from ETH Zurich recently contributed to the Spirulina Industry Development International Conference. Read full article
October 2024
Fabian Albusi and SPF lab in RWSI feature: Microalghe: cibo del futuro. external page Watch Video
September 2024
Bezos Centre for Sustainable Protein opens at the National University of Singapore with ETH Zurich Sustainable Food Processing Group of as partner. external page Press release
July 2024
Updates include new results from projects addressing food waste management using black soldier fly larvae and presentations at the Insects to Feed the World Conference. Read full article
June 2024
Moritz Gold and Adrian Fuhrmann acted as Scientific Committee Chairs for the Insects to Feed the World Conference 2024 in Singapore. This is the biggest international conference of the discipline with 180 scientific talks and 90 scientific posters. external page Conference website
January 2024
News article about the Novel Proteins for Food and Feed Project. Read full article here.
November 2023
ETH Ambassadors Blog post on RETHINKING Urban Agriculture: Dr. Iris Haberkorn as panelist at Berlin Science Week 2023 to talk about the "Urban Microalgae Protein” Project.
November 2023
SEC x Wageningen Science Symposium for an exchange in knowledge on creating more sustainable, resilient food systems with bioengineering, microalgae, and black soldier fly larvae to secure access to nutritious, affordable food. More information.
October 2023
The microalgae reactor from the Sustainable Food Processing Group was displayed at the Olma trade fair in St. Gallen and represented the research on microalgae as a food of the future. More information.
September 2023
The Sustainable Food Processing Group displayed their microalgae research at Scientifica 2023 at University of Zurich and ETH Zurich. external page More information.
September 2023
Alexander Mathys was featured in a external page podcast from the Open Your Eyes 2023 photo festival with Dr. Claudia Zingerli and George Steinmetz at the exhibition "Feed the Planet".
August 2023
Print to plate: Developing 3D printed seafood. See news article and external page video here.
July 2023
SEC presented its best digital health, urban sustainability and resilience research at the CREATE Symposium 2023. Read ETH article and external page The Straits Times article here.
May 2023
The SEC Microalgae Team contributed with a poster to the FCL Global Seed Town BSFL Team.
April 2023
The start-up Catchfree is working on a shrimp based on algae at ETH Zurich and wants to do more than just reduce the burden on the environment. Highlight with Lukas Böcker in external page FT Medien (DE).
March 2023
Byron Perez won the ETH Medal for his outstanding Master’s thesis about improving microalgae productivity and efficiency using nanosecond pulsed electric fields. More information.
March 2023
Dr. Moritz Gold, ETH Senior Researcher of the black soldier fly project was a panelist for the event “Scaling Insect Production Successfully in Asia”, hosted by Enterprise Singapore (ESG) with support from Bühler Group. external page Recording of event.
February 2023
Nestle-ETH-SEC Science Symposium - Researchers from Nestle, ETH Zurich and SEC exchanged ideas on the future of food and nutrition research. More information.
February 2023
The NTU CCA IdeasFest was co-organized by SEC's FCL Global. The Microalgae and BSFL team contributed with an Exhibition, Talks and Panel discussion. More information.
January 2023
World Café co-organized with TUMCREATE and EIT Food: The SEC Food Team welcomed GYSS participants from TU Munich and ETH to a world café to brainstorm on solutions related to Food System Challenges with a focus on Urban Environments.
November 2022
A kick-off meeting held brought universities, industry and food agencies together in Singapore. Iris Haborkorn, project lead in Singapore, recently won a International Union of Food Science & Technology Young Scientist Award.
November 2022
Dr. Iris Haberkorn was guest at external page nextrends Asia and had a conversation about an alternate approach to the Future Food System with Joël Henri Brunner, Science Counselor, Embassy of Switzerland in Singapore.
October 2022
Session on the Urban Microalgae-Based Protein Production project led by the SEC ETH, NU Singapore and A*STAR Research at the IUFoST world congress in Singapore.
October 2022
external page Documentary at Channel News Asia highlighted the work of the "Urban Microalgae Protein" project team. (min 42:40)
August 2022
Swissinfo.ch series on external page Switzerland, the home of vegan food mentions research of Alexander Mathys on nutrition and sustainability of different diets, linking to publication external page Dietary Change Scenarios and Implications for Environmental, Nutrition, Human Health and Economic Dimensions of Food Sustainability.
July 2022
Pioneer Fellowship of Severin Eder and Lukas Böcker featured in ETH News: Plant-based prawns to protect the marine environment. The two are currently developing a platform for producing seafood that is based on microalgae. external page Article in vegconomist.
June 2022
external page BBC Arabic report on ETH and Singapore-ETH Centre microalgae research and development. Features interviews with Iris Haberkorn and Alexander Mathys.
May 2022
Greta Canelli won the 15th EU PhD Workshop on Food Engineering & Technology Award.
April 2022
Steak of the Future: An interactive feature in the Swiss Tages Anzeiger focused on alternatives to meat from across Switzerland. More Sustainable options included were insects, cultured meat and algae, with research from ETH Zurich highlighted. external page Read article (DE)
April 2022
The external page Singapore Straights Times recently featured the project "Urban Microalgae-Based Protein Production."
March 2022
Sergiy Smetana, Eric Schmitt and Alexander Mathy won the RCR's 2021 Most Downloaded Paper Award for "external page Sustainable use of Hermetia illucens insect biomass for feed and food: Attributional and consequential life cycle assessment".
February 2022
Congratulations to the Doctoral Examination on evaluating environmental and nutritional sustainability dimensions of agrifood systems through advancements in nutritional LCA of Ashley Green.
January 2022
Visit with the Singapore-ETH Center Team at the Protein Innovation Center Singapore.
January 2022
NUS Press Release on new interdisciplinary project to develop blueprint for sustainable urban food waste management and food systems using black soldier flies. external page News
November 2021
Ashley Green, Thomas Nemecek, Sergiy Smetana and Alexander Mathys awarded Food Day @ETH Poster Prize for work on Download Nutritionally-invested environmental impacts of food products and national food supply (JPEG, 483 KB).
September 2021
external page Article in NZZ from Alexander Mathys and Barbara Dubach about sustainable food consumption based on the work of the NRP73 project.
August 2021
Congratulations to Dr. Greta Canelli for her Doctoral examination on bioaccessible stable ω3-polyunsaturated fatty acids by using whole microalgae cells.
August 2021
ETH Blog Post about "RETHINKING Living: The Future of Food and the Food of the Future" from Iris Haberkorn, ETH Zurich and Gisela Detrell, University of Stuttgart.
Moritz Gold awarded an ETH Zurich Medal Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis, entitled Towards more efficient biowaste utilization with black soldier fly larvae to produce more sustainable animal feed.
Annoucement of new The ‘Urban Microalgae-Based Protein Production’ project, led by the Singapore-ETH Centre, together with the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Agency for Science Technology and Research’s (A*STAR’s) Singapore Institute of Food and Biotechnology Innovation (SIFBI). The project, which starts on 1 January 2022, will develop more sustainable methods to produce protein based on microalgae. Read press release
Principal Investigator Alexander Mathys part of expert panel at SwissNex India event on 20 November:
Switzerland: Driving the future of food and nutrition
Swiss agri-food experts at Bangalore Tech Summit 2020
external page https://www.swissnexindia.org/event/switzerland-bts2020/
Principal Investigator Alexander Mathys was an invited speaker at Nature Café on Environmental Stress and Food Crisis on 12 November, where he introduced aspects of the Novel Proteins Flagship. external page https://conferences.nature.com/event/11eae29f-57ed-46c4-a335-04d73afdb985/summary
Gratulations to Dr. Leandro Buchmann from the Sustainable Food Processing Group for winning the ETH Medal Award for his Doctoral Thesis on emerging pulsed electric field (PEF) applications for single cell systems in the biobased industry!
Congratulations to ETH Zürich doctoral student Greta Canelli for winning the European Federation of Food Science and Technology PhD Student of the Year Award. Greta won external page first place for her work on Enzymatic degradation of Chlorella vulgaris cell wall to enhance protein and lipid bioaccessibility.
Dr. Lukas Böcker from the Sustainable Food Processing Group presented at the Institute for Food, Nutrition and Health Seminar on 22 Septmber 2020. His talked was entitled "Microalgae proteins: From bulk to techno-functional proteins with benefits for nutrition and sustainability," and he answered questions from the participants. More about series: https://ifnh.ethz.ch/seminars.html
Swiss Association of Agronomists and Food Scientists (SVIAL) Event:
Algae - A Part of a Future Diet takes a look into the innovative research of the Sustainable Food Processing Group.
Organizers: SVIAL, ETH Alumni Agri-Food und SFP
Location: ETH Zürich, LFO F25, Schmelzbergstrasse 9, 8092 Zürich
Date: 21.10.2020
Time: 17:15 – 19:00 CET
Language: DE
More information and register: external page https://svial.ch/veranstaltungen-und-events/agenda/events/agro-food-science-im-fokus-algen/#
Swiss business and financial newspaper L'Agefi article focuses on insects as a sustainable source of nutrients. Alexander Mathys comments on use of insects to produce nutritious fish feed. external page L'Agefi(FR)
Congratulations to ETH Zürich doctoral students Iris Haberkorn and Lukas Böcker for winning the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) SHIFT20 International Research Paper Competition Award 2020!
Iris won the competition for her work on Harnessing Pulsed Electric Field Processing for Leveraging Microalgae Value Chain Efficiency. Lukas won first place for his work on Showcasing Fibrillary of Meat Analogues with Yellow Auxenochlorella protothecoides microalgae.
Spotlight interview: Talking about Novel Proteins with Principal Investigator Prof. Alexander Mathys in WFSC News
Got iron? Team at Fernfachhochschule Schweiz, ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences & ETH Zürich investigating iron bioavailability in insect-based foods, looking for sources of sustainable dietary iron for humans. Project featured in FHHS news (in DE): external page https://www.ffhs.ch/de/ffhs/news/artikel/2020-06-23-50000-kaefer-arbeiten-fuer-die-ffhs-forschung
“Single-cell protein produced through fermentation of yeast, bacteria, or algae are interesting niche products today for premium food applications. In the coming years, we expect to see the growing attractiveness of these proteins not only for food but also as a source of more sustainable protein for fish and poultry feed,” explains Beatrice Conde-Petit, Food Science Officer at the Bühler Group, a project industry partner. Full story on “Raising the protein stakes” in external page FoodIngredientsFirst News
Study is first to simulate midgut digestion for black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) to estimate biowaste conversion performance. BSFL diet intake and midgut region residence times were determined.
external page Estimating black soldier fly larvae biowaste conversion performance by simulation of midgut digestion by Gold, M. et al.
New study provides a functionality assessment of Spirulina algae protein. The findings help optimize the efficiency of raw material usage.
external page Time-temperature-resolved functional and structural changes of phycocyanin extracted from Arthrospira platensis/Spirulina by Böcker, L. et al.
PI Prof. Alexander Mathys appointed as external page Governing Council Member of the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE).
New study investigated Chlorella vulgaris algae cultivated in bioreactor and found that C. vulgaris biomass can be considered as a stable and nutritious source of essential fatty acids.
external page Chlorella vulgaris in a heterotrophic bioprocess: Study of the lipid bioaccessibility and oxidative stability by Canelli, G. et al.
Recent study on incorporation of microalgae into soy alternative meat products successfully acheives enhanced nutrition, tenderness and light color. Auxenochlorella protothecoides algae integration improved the extrudate's nutritional profile by incorporating vitamins B and E, where over 95% was retained in the final product.
external page Extruded meat analogues based on yellow, heterotrophically cultivated Auxenochlorella protothecoides microalgae by Caporgno, M.P. et al.
Principal Investigator Prof. Alexander Mathys presents "In search of a circular economy: Novel protein sources for tackling food system challenges" at Future of Nutrition Summit in Paris, France.
What are the benefits for humans and the environment if more insects instead of meat end up on our plates? Prof. Alexander Mathys and Dr. Christina Hartmann talk about their research in the ETH Podcast "Insects on our plates." Listen here
German 3sat Nano science program features project on the use of black soldier fly larvae as feed, interview with Prof. Alexander Mathys and Moritz Gold. Watch the eposide (in German, start 11:30) external page here
Principal Investigator Prof. Alexander Mathys collaborates with Wageningen University and EnerGaia to organize session entitled "From the Bioreactor to the Plate: Addressing the Global Food Challenge With Algae" at AAAS 2018 Annual Meeting in Austin, TX. external page Session program
Tackling the Protein Gap: Prof. Alexander Mathys presented at World Minds in Zurich, focusing on his research on novel proteins from algae and insects. external page Watch the talk
Numerous groups at ETH Zurich and Eawag are working together to achieve the goals of the project:
- ETH Zurich Sustainable Food Processing Group with Prof. Alexander Mathys as Project Principal Investigator (PI)
- external page Eawag Department Sanitation, Water and Solid Waste for Development
- ETH Zurich Consumer Behavior Group
- ETH Zurich Animal Nutrition Group
- ETH Zurich Human Nutrition Group
Academic and industry partners are critical to the project’s success:
- Singapore-ETH Centre
- Wageningen University Research
- National University of Singapore (NUS)
- Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) Singapore
- Nanyang Technological University - NTU Singapore
- Singapore Food Agency
- University of Cambridge
- University of Zurich
- Bern University of Applied Sciences
- ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences
- German Institute of Food Technologies (DIL)
- Research Institute of Organic Agriculture, Switzerland (FiBL)
- Swiss Food Research
- Agroscope
- Bühler Group AG
- Givaudan AG
- Nestlé Research Center
- Planted Foods AG
- GNT Europa GmbH