Utilising food waste as a feedstock for the production of functional food ingredients from yeast

Every year, the UK throws away millions of tonnes of food waste that could instead be fed to yeast to produce valuable ingredients for the food industry. This project trains doctoral students to turn that waste into a resource. The core problem is simple: food waste is both an environmental and economic liability, while the food industry relies on imported or resource-intensive ingredients. Yeast can be grown on waste streams—like fruit peels or spent grains—and engineered to produce functional food ingredients, such as natural flavours, colours, or texturisers. The research addresses a gap in how to do this efficiently and at scale. If successful, this work could help shift food manufacturing from a linear "take-make-dispose" model toward a circular one. Instead of sending waste to landfill or anaerobic digestion, processors could use it as a low-cost feedstock. The result would be cheaper, more sustainable ingredients for products people already eat, and a reduced environmental footprint for the food supply chain. Because this is a training grant, the primary output is skilled researchers who can take these ideas into industry or academia. The immediate practical application is not guaranteed, but the fundamental science of yeast metabolism and waste valorisation is a necessary step toward making food production more resource-efficient.