Food production research

 

The food and beverage industry is a dynamic and diverse sector that plays a fundamental role in providing essential products, driving economic growth, and shaping consumer preferences and lifestyles worldwide. ATCC plays a vital role in supporting the food industry by providing a compendium of biological resources, expertise, and services that contribute to food safety, quality, innovation, and regulatory compliance. Through its diverse collection of microbial strains and cell lines, ATCC helps food manufacturers and stakeholders address challenges, meet industry standards, and advance scientific knowledge in the field of food production and biotechnology.

 

Alternative protein   Fermented products   Oils & fats   Agriculture   Food quality testing

 

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Alternative proteins are innovative foods that are produced from non-animal sources such as cell lines or microorganisms. As compared to traditional animal-derived sources of protein, the production of alternative proteins requires less land and water resources, providing a sustainable way to meet the growing global demand for protein. Cultivated meat, which is produced through cellular agriculture or cellular-based processes rather than traditional animal farming, is one of the emerging technologies for alternative protein manufacturing. The process involves cultivating animal cells in a controlled environment like a bioreactor. Mycoprotein, a protein-rich substance derived from fungi, has gained importance as another type of alternative protein due to its contribution to a more sustainable, environmentally friendly, and diverse protein landscape. Mycoprotein similarly has the capacity to address concerns related to traditional protein sources and meet the evolving preferences of consumers. As a leading developer and supplier of authenticated biological materials, ATCC provides a variety of cell lines and fungi that support research on the production of cultivated proteins and mycoproteins, respectively.

The fermented food and beverages industry plays a pivotal role in providing a diverse range of flavorful, nutritious, and culturally significant products to consumers worldwide while also contributing to food security, sustainability, and economic growth. It involves controlled use of microorganisms or enzymes to convert raw materials into a range of products. ATCC plays a critical role in supporting food and beverage fermentation by providing a wide range of microbial resources that contribute to process optimization, product development, quality assurance, and innovation in the field of food science and technology. We also offer a variety of nonconventional yeast (species other than Saccharomyces cerevisiae) exhibiting unique characteristics and capabilities that make them suitable for various applications in precision fermentation, bioprocessing, and biotechnology.

Microbial oils are lipids that are naturally accumulated by oleaginous microorganisms following fermentation on various substrates. Because microbial oils can be rich in monounsaturated fatty acids or polyunsaturated fatty acids, they have potential value in the food and feed industry as additives for enhancing or supplementing the fatty acid composition of specific foods. To support this growing area of research, ATCC provides a variety of microbial strains with potential applications in oil and fat production.

Microorganisms play an important role in the growth and health of crop plants. Plant growth-promoting microbes (PGPMs) encompass microorganisms that play a beneficial role in enhancing the growth, vitality, and yield of plants. These microorganisms establish symbiotic or associative relationships with plants and can be used as biofertilizers or biostimulants. Microbial strains can also benefit plant growth and health by protecting plants from disease through biocontrol. Here, bacterial and fungal strains can be used to reduce the population of harmful weeds, nematodes, microbial pathogens, and arthropod species. Researchers keen on exploring these applications can browse the ATCC catalog to identify pertinent strains tailored to their unique research objectives. We also offer a variety of microbial pathogens known to cause disease in major crop plants; these strains can be used to develop diagnostic assays for plant disease and facilitate biocontrol research.

To ensure the safety and quality of food before it reaches the consumer, final products, raw materials, and associated equipment are rigorously evaluated for the presence of pathogens via routine testing. ATCC plays a crucial role in advancing food safety and quality testing by providing authenticated microbial reference materials that support quality control testing procedures, process validation, and the development of new methods for testing food products. Our portfolio encompasses a growing collection of minimally passaged quality control strains that are fully authenticated and characterized, including a variety of species typically associated with foodborne illness.