Led by Professor Filiz Koksel, the team, including Maria Arzamendi, a Mitacs Globalink intern from Mexico, is developing strategies to reduce food waste by using bakery by-products to create high-protein, fiber-rich snacks.

The researchers are combining leftover bread crumbs from a bakery with pulse flour, which is flour from legume crops, and using a novel technique to manipulate the food structure during processing. The local ingredients are resource efficient, environmentally friendly, and nutritional.

“The project underlines a priority for Canadian prairie farmers to grow, rather than raise, protein sources,” says Professor Koksel. “It also coincides with the Government of Canada’s recent supercluster investment to prioritize innovation in the agri-food sector to manufacture nutritionally dense and palatable plant proteins.”

For Maria, her Globalink internship represents an opportunity to be a part of something that could benefit future generations. “The ultimate goal of our research is to achieve a more sustainable food future while making healthier and nutritional snacks for Canadians. I am so excited to see where our work takes us.”

Mitacs would like to thank the Government of Canada, along with the Government of Alberta, the Government of British Columbia, Research Manitoba, and the Government of Quebec for their support of the Globalink Research Internship program. In addition, in the summer of 2019, Mitacs was pleased to work with the following international partners to support Globalink: Universities Australia; the China Scholarship Council; Campus France; the German Academic Exchange Service; Mexico’s Secretariat of Public Education, Tecnológico de Monterrey, and the National Autonomous University of Mexico; and Tunisia’s Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research and Mission Universitaire de Tunisie en Amerique du Nord.​

Do you have a business challenge that could benefit from a research solution? If so, contact Mitacs today to discuss partnership opportunities: BD@mitacs.ca