Comparative Assessment of Enzymatic Hydrolysis for Valorization of Different Protein-Rich Industrial Byproducts

Hydrolyzed protein-rich byproducts from food production may find a variety of applications, for example, as rich ingredients of fermentation media. We have conducted a study of the enzymatic hydrolysis of three byproducts from Norwegian food industries: chicken byproducts, mixed pork and beef byproducts, and salmon viscera. The efficiency and optimization of the enzymatic hydrolysis were evaluated using endogenous enzymes alone and in combination with commercial proteases. Hydrolysis reactions were conducted with freshly thawed raw materials using short incubation times and including an initial temperature gradient from 4 to 60 °C to both harness the power of endogenous enzymes and minimize microbial contamination. Subsequently, hydrolysates were characterized by analyzing the total recovery of protein, the peptide molecular-weight distribution, and the composition of total and free amino acids. The action of endogenous enzymes played an important role in raw-material hydrolysis, particularly when hydrolyzing salmon viscera but less so when hydrolyzing chicken byproducts. For pork-beef and chicken byproducts, the addition of Alcalase or Papain improved protein recovery, reaching levels up to 90%. Next to showing efficient hydrolysis protocols, the present data also provide a comparison of the amino acid compositions of hydrolysates derived from these three different protein-rich byproducts. Growth studies showed that the obtained protein-rich hydrolysates from meat and fish industries are a promising alternative for expensive nitrogen sources that are commonly used for fermenting yeasts.