Our R&D program, in collaboration with academic and industrial partners, focuses on agricultural byproducts as sources of potential prebiotics. We target high-volume agricultural supply chains in Brazil with large availability of byproducts and have identified some which are possible sources of new prebiotic ingredients. Moreover, upcycling these byproducts that otherwise would be discarded, creates very positive environmental impacts as well as social benefits for the local communities where these byproducts are generated.

The research activities include the detailed chemical characterization of the selected ingredients, nutritional profiling, physical-chemical analyses, and the monitoring of contaminants such as pesticides and heavy metals. The prebiotic activity is indirectly measured by the formation of short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) in fiber fermentation studies in the presence of gut bacteria. SCFAs are the main metabolites formed during fiber fermentation. The population of gut microorganisms is directly assessed employing Molecular Biology tools such as PCR.