Mars Petcare and EIT Food have named BioscienZ and CREMER Sustainable Nutrition as the winners of the Fibre Valorisation for Petfood Challenge. The challenge, which sought innovative solutions to convert agricultural byproducts into nutritious ingredients for petfood, selected the winners after reviewing over 50 applications.
BioscienZ and CREMER Sustainable Nutrition will now develop proof-of-concept studies for sustainable petfood ingredients. The initiative aims to reduce waste and environmental impact in petfood production by transforming byproducts like straw and vegetable peelings into proteins or sugars digestible by pets.
BioscienZ uses microorganisms to produce food and feed ingredients, and will collaborate with Mars Petcare to explore converting fibrous materials into ingredients for liquid petfood. CREMER Sustainable Nutrition, part of the CREMER group, focuses on improving the digestibility of plant fibers in animal feed through solid-state fermentation, and will work with Mars to test the process for petfood applications.
Mars Petcare’s Global S&T Platform Leader Michael Horan and EIT Food’s Benoit Buntinx both expressed optimism about the collaboration, noting its potential to contribute to a more sustainable and circular petfood system.