Our company owns rights to a patent concerning the extraction of chlorogenic acids (CQA) from green coffee beans. Those compounds are one of the main bioactive constituents of coffee beans, characterized by a high antioxidant potential. Preliminary reports from around a decade ago show, that they are an efficient food additive, allowing to protect food components from chemical degradation. Thus, based on the data we have, the company decided to initiate a project entitled “Development of a natural, plant derived food preservative”. The project assumes obtaining a method and composition of a widely active preservative for food, which would limit growth of spoilage and toxic microorganisms, at the same time preventing chemical degradation. This particular project is conducted in the laboratories of BioNanoPark and obtained external funding.
The planned project product will have use for preservation of meat and bakery products, with possible testing of other matrices. At the same time the fact, that it will be purely plant-based allows for its marketing to vegans and people interested in limiting the amount of synthetic chemicals ingested with food.
Another advantage of the core component of the planned products – CQA – is the fact, that these compounds have a pro-health effect – limiting fat absorption in the gut and regulating liver activity – which influences the weight losing and general wellbeing of a human organism.
The project is scheduled to finish in the year 2020, with the final product being a technology for obtaining a food grade plant extract, suitable for use in human nutrition, which will have a preservative function for the products it is used in.