Seeking Methodologies to Validate Postbiotics Functional Benefits from Plant-Based Fermentations

ISAPP defines postbiotics as a “preparation of inanimate microorganisms and/or their components that confers a health benefit on the host. They could be comprised of inactivated microbial cells with or without metabolites or cell components. The postbiotic does not have to be derived from a probiotic in order to be a postbiotic with a health benefit.

Since postbiotics is an emerging area globally with few published science-based studies, PepsiCo is looking to develop or adapt existing methodologies and validation protocols for postbiotics to support functional gut health claims. We are looking to develop postbiotics from plant-based, specifically oat, rice, bean, and potato-based fermentations using organisms such as lactic acid bacteria, yeast, and/or potentially fungi to deliver benefits to gut health.

Key Success Criteria:

We are scouting for differentiated methodologies, technologies, and/or model systems to address the challenges below.

• Screening methodologies to identify postbiotics that deliver gut health benefits.
• Either established or new metabolite identification and screening methodologies for pre-validation, validation, and monitoring of metabolite production during fermentation.
• Strategies to establish pre-clinical studies for postbiotic functionality (analytical testing, in vitro models, etc.)
• Strategies to ensure batch to batch metabolite production consistency during fermentation. Quick turnaround methods to ensure consistent postbiotic production from fermentation batch to batch.

Must-Have Requirements

• Development of postbiotic identification methods should take no longer than 4-6 months and be focused on analysis from oat, rice, bean, and potato-based fermentations.
• For postbiotics pre-clinical studies, preferred to be adaptation of existing models applied to postbiotics produced from plant-based fermentations.
• Development and/or adaptation of an existing method(s) should be able to be applied for postbiotic production at commercial scale. The method should be quick turn-around, easy to conduct in a commercial facility, and not require highly specialized equipment to allow for the monitoring of postbiotic production consistency from fermentation batch to batch.

Preferred Requirements

• Adaptation of currently available metabolite identification methods to be able to analyze metabolites from plant-based fermentation
• Partner has strong technical capabilities in developing and screening plant-based fermentations for gut health functional benefits.

Approaches Not of Interest:

Novel method/technology/model systems that will take 6+ months to validate.

Preferred Collaboration Type:

PepsiCo is open to a range of collaboration types

Resources Available when collaborating with PepsiCo

• Dedicated project team is available starting from proof of concept tobringing this to market at a massive scale in both foods and beverage format
• Funding: Potential project funding is available up to $25K-$100K USD.