VRM LABS, INC. — Department of Agriculture SBIR Phase I: 8.4

Description

Antioxidants are a vital component of the food industry. Most of currently used antioxidants aresynthetic chemicals, and there is a global concern among regulatory bodies and customersregarding the safety of these compounds. However, natural antioxidants are more than ten timesmore expensive, and are often not as effective as their synthetic counterparts. Thus, there is a needfor inexpensive and capable natural antioxidants. In response to this need, we have developed anovel, simple, and cheap method for extraction of natural, safe, and effective antioxidants fromanimal blood, a source available in large quantities as a co-product from the animal and poultryprocessing industry. We have shown these novel antioxidants are as efficient as currently usedsynthetic antioxidants in several food models. Perhaps even more compelling is the low cost ofproduction, which is several times cheaper than that for most of the synthetic competitors, and 25-50 times cheaper than that for natural antioxidants. The long-term goal of this project is to developan inexpensive natural antioxidant to be used as a human food preservative. During the Phase I, wewill focus on collecting the proof-of-concept performance and safety data for our prototypeproduct. Studies performed during the Phase I will address 1) Comparison performance of ourproduct to that of most common synthetic and natural antioxidants and optimization of thetreatment dose; 2) Study of the mechanism of antioxidant activity; and 3) Assessment ofsusceptibility to microbial contamination. This project will further advance methods ofextraction and characterization of antioxidants from animal/poultry blood and provide better insighton their safety and susceptibility to bacterial contamination. This study will also advanceknowledge about performance and stability of antioxidants extracted in partially purified form, in amixture with other blood components.