From waste to resource: Exploring the potential of food waste valorization for sustainable fatty acid production

Food waste is an inevitable byproduct of our food systems, and despite efforts to reduce, dispose of, or upgrade it into valuable derivatives such as compost or renewable natural gas, more than 50% of produced food waste in the U.S. ends up in landfills every year, amounting to over 30 million tons. This is largely due to a lack of economic incentives that encourage food waste utilization by different stakeholders.
An opportunity to address this challenge lies in the development and adoption of novel technologies that can upgrade food waste into higher-value products than compost or biogas. One such emerging technology with increased research attention is rewired anaerobic digestion. This process relies on microbes that can transform food waste into fatty acids, which have an increasing market in different industries such as fuels, pharmaceuticals, and food preservatives. Fatty acids are currently produced from petrochemicals and are used in various products, including food preservatives. Therefore, producing fatty acids from food waste presents a win-win opportunity to decrease the environmental carbon footprint of our food systems. This research explores the potential of RWAD to produce fatty acids from food waste. We conducted experiments using food waste from Colorado State University dining hall and evaluated the fatty acid production potential and profile using different microbial communities. Our results suggest that the production of a specific fatty acid is significantly impacted by the types of microbes and operating conditions. Among all fatty acids, potential platforms could be developed to produce acetic, propionic, or butyric acid.