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At the hackathon, solutions were sought for food production from wood waste
In April 25-26, six teams searched for new ways to use wood as a starting material in the food industry at the "Wood to Food" international hackathon organized by the Centre of Bioeconomy of the Estonian University of Life Sciences and Fibenol.
According to Katrin Kepp, one of the main organizers and jury member of the hackathon, head of the Centre of Bioeconomy, university has the ability and ambition to be the birthplace of innovative circular bioeconomy solutions. "This also led us to a collaboration with Fibenol, who wanted to find new ways to value the chemical compounds obtained from wood into food. It is such slightly crazy ideas, such as the production of food from wood, that can lead to completely ground-breaking sustainable technologies in cooperation between companies and researchers," said Kepp.
On this occasion, two solution-providing teams from Sweden, two from Estonia, one team from Belgium and one from Switzerland participated in the hackathon. Team members from the winner Novel Yeast (Belgium) proposed a solution to convert C5 sugars from Fibenol waste wood into xylitol using genetically modified and proprietary yeast strains. Xylitol is widely used in toothpastes, chewing gums, pharmaceutical and food industries and elsewhere.
Although Fibenol's representatives said that all the teams that participated in the hackathon can be considered winners, the overall winner will be awarded the opportunity to participate in the Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking joint research and development project with Fibenol.
Estonia was represented by teams from the Estonian University of Life Sciences (participants Maidu Silm and Rihard Reissaar) and the Excellence Center for Food Innovation and Biotechnology TFTAK.
At the hackathon, the teams were guided by 13 mentors, Timo Kikas, Toonika Rinken, Sana Ben Othman and Liis Lutter from the Estonian University of Life Sciences participated as mentors. In addition to Katrin Kepp, the members of the jury were representatives of Fibenol and Rein Drenkhan, Vice-Rector for Research at the Estonian University of Life Sciences. The photo gallery is located here.
The organization of the international hackathon was financed by Interreg BSR within the BioBoosters project. More information: https://interreg-baltic.eu/project/bioboosters/
More information:
Katrin Kepp
Head of the Centre of Bioeconomy of the Estonian University of Life Sciences
+ 372 5615 7938
katrin.kepp@emu.ee