Projects

CELLARTE Ltd. conducts research within the framework of the Latvian Food Industry Competence Centre.

Project number: 1.2.1.1/18/A/002

In its activity, the Latvian Food Industry Competence Centre (LPNKC) encompasses two research areas:

1) Expansion of Latvian manufacturers’ product market, including following areas:

• Innovative products and technologies, following the latest trends of circular economy (including eco-technological products, food safety and quality monitoring solutions).
• Product packaging solutions.
• Food logistics solutions, including technologies that decrease the shelf-life, storage time and transportation costs while maintaining high product quality and shortening the route from the manufacturer to the consumer.

2) Increase of manufacturing added value and competitiveness, including the following areas:

• Improvement of the use of food by-products in products with higher added value.
• Agricultural and fruit-growing research to improve efficiency or resource usage – best-suited varieties, cultivation technologies.
• New, innovative products with higher added value taking full advantage of existing market, technologies and other factors of production.
• The goal of the competence center project is to support at least 20 studies in accordance with the defined research areas while developing new products and technologies in the field and implementing them in manufacturing, thus facilitating collaboration between the research and manufacturing sectors as well as a competitiveness increase of enterprises within the field.
• The project implementation period is from 8 April 2019 to 31 December 2021.
• Total amount of ERAF funding for the project: EUR 4 708 111,50.

CELLARTE LTD project within the framework of LPNKC:

Project No. 6 The extraction of the bioflavonoid apigenin from medicinal chamomiles (Matricaria recutita) for the development of a functional food product.

Research project description: Within the framework of the research product, it is planned to develop the technological manufacturing process for the acquisition of liquid and dry chamomile extract, standardized by its apigenin content. As a result of the project, technologies shall be developed for the acquisition of liquid and dry chamomile extract, and the efficiency thereof shall be evaluated.

The project envisages both industrial research and experimental development activities.

Duration of the project: 1 August 2019 – 28 February 2021.

Total cost of the research project: EUR 115 958,60

Including ERAF funding: EUR 86 820,80

 

Overview of the research project 1 August 2019 – 31 October 2019.
During the reporting period, the following project implementation activities have been carried out:

Analysis of scientific and technical literature for the standardization of raw materials – development of processes, procedures and quality control.
Development of test batteries with threshold values of the test parameters.
Creation of working drafts of the procedures necessary to evaluate the raw materials before starting manufacturing processes.
Development of a pretreatment inspection report for the raw materials in accordance with the defined quality criteria, determining the degree of fineness, sorting and solvent pretreatment parameters.
Collection of necessary samples for further processing and use.
Specialized analysis of technical literature, examining parameters of the extraction process – pH, temperature, cycle duration, water to solvent ratio, fluid to raw material ratio for optimum extraction of apigenin, as well as other flavonoids.
Development of extraction protocols is ongoing, adding sections for optimization and stability, several working drafts have been drawn up, to be evaluated during the course of the implementation.
The activities carried out during the reporting period correspond to the project implementation plan, no deviations from the execution plan are expected.

Overview of the research project 1 November 2019 – 31 January 2020.
During the reporting period, the following project implementation activities have been carried out:

The raw material standardization activities started during the previous period were continued, test batteries were conducted, procedures for evaluation of the raw material and pretreatment before extraction were updated.
Analysis of literature and extraction trials with varying extraction parameters for optimum extraction of polyphenols, flavonoids, apigenin and apigenin-7-O-glycoside were continued. Development of extraction protocols was continued, adding sections of optimization and stability, and the evaluation of these protocols was carried on.
Analysis of scientific and technical literature, for the evaporation of the extract and development of the technological process, procedures and quality control for the dry extract.
Working drafts of the technological procedures were created, their evaluation was started.
The activities carried out during the reporting period correspond to the project implementation plan, no deviations from the execution plan are expected.

Information updated: 4 February 2020