Reducing Food Waste by Upcycling Pea Starch

Food waste is a major problem - More than 4.8 million tonnes of food is lost or wasted during processing in Canada per year. Finding ways of making these processes more sustainable by upcycling waste products is desirable from an environmental as well as an economic standpoint. 

Pea starch is a waste product of the food industry, removed as a by-product during pea protein manufacturing. With the demand for plant-based proteins on the rise, development of pea protein fractionations and refining is on the rise, leading to generation of surplus pea starch waste. Its unique composition compared to other starches makes it unsuitable for direct use in foods and limits its potential applications.

Associate Professor Dr. Ashutosh Singh and PhD candidate Rahul Islam Barbhuiya in the School of Engineering at the University of Guelph are looking for new and innovative ways to reduce food waste generation and make food processing more sustainable. 

“We need greener, cleaner, and more sustainable practices,” says Singh. “We want to find ways to add value to pea starch.”

Together, the team is developing a potential new application for pea starch that could benefit the agri-food industry in more ways than one.

A Sustainable Solution

Currently, starch from other plant sources like corn or potato are widely used as an encapsulation agent – a protective shell surrounding a compound of interest. Encapsulation can improve the stability, solubility, and release profile of compounds so that they can be used more effectively. 

The team developed a spray precipitation method for encapsulating neem oil using pea starch. Neem oil is a natural pesticide that offers a greener alternative to many of the chemical pesticides currently used. By varying the spray precipitation parameters, Barbhuiya found that he could control the properties of the encapsulated neem oil particles. An encapsulation efficiency (how much of the neem oil was successfully encapsulated) of up to 90% was achieved, with the particles being highly stable. The neem oil was also released more slowly when encapsulated, demonstrating that it could be used in applications where a gradual release over time is preferred.  

A Greener Future

Using pea starch waste to encapsulate neem oil reduces the amount of waste from the food industry, as well as creates a greener alternative to toxic pesticides. 

The methods developed by Barbhuiya and Singh could also be used for many other applications. 

“This is a highly applicable technique,” said Barbhuiya. “You could use any type of starch to encapsulate different compounds.” 

The effectiveness of the encapsulated neem oil particles will be evaluated in an upcoming field trial.

This story was written by Carley Miki as part of the Science Communicators: Research @ CEPS initiative. Miki is a PhD candidate in the Department of Physics under Dr. John Dutcher. Her research focus is on understanding the forces and interactions between soft, sugar-based nanoparticles and how they differ when charged.

This work is supported by the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada.

Barbhuiya, R. I., et. al.  Upcycling of industrial pea starch by rapid spray nanoprecipitation to develop plant-derived oil encapsulated starch nanoparticles for potential agricultural applications. Carbohydrate Polymers. 2024, 346, 122618. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.carbpol.2024.122618