SBIR Phase I: Bio-inspired encapsulation approaches for improving stability and delivery of food compounds

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project is the development of an array of natural and low cost food-derived encapsulation products with improved overall physicochemical stability of the bioactives during processing and storage. There is a great consumer demand for food-derived phytochemicals and nutrient bioactives that are known to exhibit excellent health and nutritional benefits. But, an imposing challenge to the food industry is the inherent oxidative and thermal instability of these bioactives during processing and storage that eventually results in their degradation. The current solutions are sub-optimal, add substantial cost, and often require the use of synthetic chemicals. All of these only provide a limited improvement in the food product's shelf life. Success in improving chemical and thermal stability of susceptible food ingredients and bioactives utilizing an encapsulation process that will provide an all-natural solution without additives and sacrificial antioxidants will transform the food encapsulation industry (current market size over $22 billion dollars,) and improve the sustainability of food products by extending their shelf life. This SBIR Phase I project proposes to develop a novel encapsulation approach that will significantly improve oxidative, pH and thermal stability of the encapsulated bioactive compounds, and thereby extend their shelf-lives. Challenges during food processing and storage arise due to inherent oxidative and chemical instability of bioactives and natural colorants and their accelerated degradation during processing. The key objectives of this project are to develop encapsulation systems using cells to encapsulate bioactives by a pressure-assisted encapsulation method, evaluate the influence of pH, heat and oxidation on stability of encapsulated bioactives, and determine their shelf life in a model beverage system. The encapsulated model compounds include: natural color extracts, antioxidants and anti-inflammatory products, and vitamins. Compared to the current state-of-art, the application of a rapid and scalable pressure-assisted encapsulation technology enables quick and efficient partitioning of fat-soluble and water-soluble compounds in intracellular structures of cells. It also provides multifold improvement in the kinetics and efficiency of encapsulation process compared to conventional diffusion processes.