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Purple4Life × PurpleGain Workshop

Poster presented at the Purple4Life × PurpleGain Workshop — Mons, Belgium (March 19–20, 2026)

Fresh microbial proteins represent a serious path toward more sustainable food and feed systems, but stabilizing them without heat treatment remains a real technical challenge.

This is precisely what we are working on at Celabor srl. Our poster presented the development of an integrated, non-thermal downstream processing line for purple phototrophic bacteria (PPB) — from harvesting to stabilization — with the goal of producing fresh, protein-rich biomass without altering sensitive bioactive compounds.

Key result: the combination of centrifugation + HPP at 5,000 bars allows for microbial reductions of up to 6 log, a shelf life of up to 45 days under refrigeration, and better carotenoid retention than with conventional thermal treatments.

This work was carried out by Imad Mhanna and Camille Malterre as part of the ProteBoost project, integrated into the FoodWal portfolio — funded by the Public Service of Wallonia (Win4Excellence, agreement no. 2210182, Wallonia Recovery Plan).

A big thank you to HPP Services Belgium (Beneo, Belgium) for their time, facilities, and expertise in generating these results.
#PPB #MicrobialProteins #HPP #NonThermal #FoodTech #Celabor #FoodWal #ProteBoost #Purple4Life #SustainableFood #NovelFood