Can we ferment our way to more food security?

When you think of fermented foods, you probably conjure up images of sauerkraut, wine and cheese.

But this centuries-old food processing technology holds the potential to help decrease food insecurity, and Saskatchewan is poised to be a global leader in it. 

"In Canada, we are lucky to have so much food," says Mehmet Tulbek, the president of the Saskatchewan Food Industry Development Centre in Saskatoon, which works with companies to create new products, including using fermentation. "That's why we need to lead this movement. We can provide a more sustainable and secure food supply chain. That's really the key about this technology."

Fermentation technology at a commercial scale offers the opportunity to develop more nutritious food products using crops and by-products that exist in abundance in Canada, and even to transform what would otherwise be waste from food processing, Tulbek says.

WATCH | CBC's Natascia Lypny checked out some of the Sask. companies experimenting with fermentation:

Fermentation was historically used to extent the shelf life of foods. It basically refers to converting microorganisms into food, ingredients or products with specific functions. 

On a commercial scale, the fermentation process works much the same, although it is more controlled in terms of the cultures involved. Companies have been particularly focused on using fermentation to alter the nutritional content of foods, and make them more palatable.

According to the Good Food Institute, the food processing industry began using fermentation widely in the 1980s. In recent years, interest in this technology is spiking to the point where it's considered a pillar of the "new protein revolution," which refers to the increasing global demand for high-quality alternative and plant-based proteins that are developed in sustainable, ethical and environmentally friendly ways.

Innovative food processing solutions, such as fermentation, will be critical to addressing the world's growing food insecurity issues, says Steven Webb, the executive director of the Global Institute for Food Security. In its Saskatoon-based bioengineering facility, it develops substances such as proteins that can be used in food and product development at processing centres like the Food Centre. 

Webb says, globally, food insecurity is worse now than it was three years ago due to a variety of factors, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and a rapidly increasing world population. In November, the world hit eight billion people, and the United Nations estimates the global population will hit 9.7 billion by 2050.

"We need to be able to feed the world nutritiously and sustainably with less land, less water and less resources," says Webb.

Home to approximately 43 per cent of Canada's arable land and a burgeoning value-added sector, Saskatchewan is particularly well positioned to do that.

"In Saskatchewan we have too many resources," says Rajneesh Tyagi, a Saskatoon-based entrepreneur and fermentation expert. "Our challenge is basically to add value to our local crops."

For example, several local companies are now producing protein concentrate from pulses (crops like peas and lentils), which leaves a starch by-product. Fermentation offers the opportunity to use those by-products by transforming them into nutritious products, like ready-to-eat, plant-based "meat" that looks, tastes and feels like the real thing, and can be used in a variety of ways.