SBIR Phase I: Mushroom Chitosan Biorefinery and its Application in Food Engineering

The broader/commercial impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase 1 project is in significant reduction of fresh food waste by providing a clear, edible coating on fresh fruits and vegetables. Food waste is a major issue worldwide. In the United States, almost 40% of food is wasted each year, yet more than 54 million Americans are food insecure. Globally, about 30% of food for human consumption is wasted, which equates to over a billion tons of food per year. Food waste negatively impacts food insecurity, greenhouse gas emissions, water supplies, and economic losses. Current fresh food preservation techniques are failing to rise to this challenge, and some techniques pollute the earth with packaging. The proposed solution utilizes mushroom chitosan extracts as an edible coating to extend the shelf life of fresh foods, reduce food insecurity, and relax pressure on precious resources. This project employs a specific mushroom species with high chitin content to create a clear, edible coating that can double the shelf life of fresh fruits and vegetables. Further, this project creates a greener extraction process to replace conventional chitosan extraction, which will be both cheaper and more eco-friendly compared to conventional methods. Successful mushroom-derived edible coatings will exhibit excellent antimicrobial and gas barrier properties, perform well on sensory consumer analyses, and be produced with green chemistry processes that offer cheaper, more sustainable, and scalable potential. Performance will be compared to non-treated fresh foods as well as other competitive coatings where applicable. The mushroom-based edible coating is a more sustainable alternative to many other edible coatings since the production of mushrooms does not compete with arable land, can be produced with a small fraction of the water, nitrogen, and energy inputs, and can contribute to circular bio-economy given that mushrooms are nature’s great recyclers. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.