Research Areas
The laboratory specializes in producing components using biochemical methods as well as their biochemical and nutritional characterization using both classical analytic methods and in an artificial monogastric stomach. The main research projects in recent years have been:
• Production and characterization of the nutritional quality of hydrolysates produced from waste of the food industry.
• Nutritional characterization of wild grains in unique ecological niches.
• Characterization of natural antioxidants on the digestion of red meat in an artificial stomach.
• Characterization of residual antibiotics in pre-treatment hard agricultural waste and in sludge from post-treatment urban sewage.
Research Areas of the Edible Insect Unit of the Laboratory
The research in this laboratory concentrates on optimization of the production of food components from insects. The main insect is the black soldier fly (BSF), but grasshoppers and beetles are also studied. The research focuses on:
• Optimization of the nutrition of the insects: creating nutritionally and physically suitable diets based on agricultural and industrial waste.
• Treatment of environmentally problematic waste meant for landfill, with the aim of transforming them into products that benefit humans.
• Optimization of insect breeding – characterization of the effect of biotic and abiotic factors on breeding, development, and migration of the insects.
• Optimization of harvesting processes – separation of insects from breeding substrates.
• Optimization of processes to obtain products – with the aim of improving the quality of protein component and raw material for food or feeding, and improvement of the quality and quantity of the fatty component for diverse uses, as well as improvement of the quality of other products for plant nourishment.
• Preparation of animal feed and examination of parameters of the quality of food components in feeding experiments.
