Our Research Converting dairy industry waste into food and feed ingredients

Greek yogurt is a dairy industry product that has achieved tremendous growth in the United States over the past decade due to its good taste and high nutritional value. However, the production process of Greek yogurt also generates a liquid waste by-product whose untreated disposal poses a serious environmental problem due to its high organic content and unpleasant acidic odor that is offensive to surrounding communities. This dairy industry waste is called acid whey and is generated annually at very high volumes — it is estimated that more than 3 million tons of acid whey is generated in the U.S. alone each year. This places a significant economic burden on the dairy industry but at the same time presents a great opportunity as it can be used for the production of valuable products. Using metabolic engineering, this project proposes to construct a microbial platform that will utilize acid whey and produce carotenoids that can serve as food supplements or feed additives. Alternatively, the carotenoid-enriched cell biomass can be used as nutritious animal feed.