A group of researchers from the Laboratory of Microorganism Physiology at the Universidade Federal de Viçosa won an award at the latest edition of the technoPARQ Acelera Hackathon for an idea aimed at the food industry. The researchers’ proposal is to develop a microbial fat capable of simulating animal fat, which can be used in the plant-based market, where global demand is growing every year.

“These products work as meat substitutes and are now mainly aimed at the vegan public. Vegetable oil actually has a hard time replacing the properties of animal fat. So that’s where this proposal comes in. The idea is to use yeast to create a fat that better meets this demand,” explains doctoral student Eduardo Luis Menezes de Almeida. In addition to him, PhD students Mauricio Ferreira and Rodrigo Dias, post-doc Rafaela Ventorim, undergraduate João Leitão and Professor Wendel Batista da Silveira, coordinator of the laboratory and of the Graduate Program in Agricultural Microbiology, are also working on the project.

Their expectation is to come up with something that replaces fat so well that it can appeal to people other than vegans. “It’s an idea based on other lines of research we have in the lab, with lipids, with microbial oils. Now we’ve opened a branch of these lines of research focused on developing this fat, and we’re going to work on it,” he says. The laboratory estimate that in three to five years the product will already be on the market on a pilot scale.

According to Eduardo, most of the attempts made to date to find similar animal fats use animal cell culture or vegetable oils. “We know of some startups looking at the possibility of microbial fat right now, but nobody has it developed, ready to go. It’s really in its incipiency, but it has enormous potential.”

The technoPARQ Acelera Hackathon is a marathon for developing ideas, and took place in Viçosa between April 28 and 30. The groups that reach the final stage have their ideas assessed by a judging panel made up of the park’s board of directors and UFV professors. The Microorganism Physiology Laboratory came third in the final round.