A paper was published in scientific reports

A paper has been published as a result of joint research between our laboratory and the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization.
The research results lead to the prevention of bad odor generated from food scraps.

Patent application (JP 2022-114817)
(The first author of the paper, Reina Michishita (University of Tsukuba), is one of the students whom Prof. Shimoda supervised in his research.)

URL : https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-31388-z#Ack1

Title: Inoculation with black soldier fly larvae alters the microbiome and volatile organic compound profile of decomposing food waste

The black soldier fly (BSF; Hermetia illucens) is used in sustainable processing of many types of organic waste. However, organic waste being decomposed by BSF produces strong odors, hindering more widespread application. The odor components and how they are produced have yet to be characterized. We found that digestion of food waste by BSF significantly alters the microbial flora, based on metagenomic analyses, and the odor components generated, as shown by thermal desorption gas chromatography mass spectrometry analysis. Inoculation with BSF significantly decreased production of volatile organic sulfur compounds (dimethyl disulfide and dimethyl trisulfide), which are known to be released during methionine and cysteine metabolism by Lactobacillus and Enterococcus bacteria. BSF inoculation significantly changed the abundance of Lactobacillus and Enterococcus and decreased microbial diversity overall. These findings may help in optimizing use of BSF for deodorization of composting food waste.

2023/04