STORY: The big bread theory

Puratos is to launch a new food production project in January that will explore sustainability on Earth, as well as plausible ways to grow food on Mars.

The SpaceBakery project, led by Puratos, is composed of seven Belgian organisations and has just been awarded a new subsidy of 4.5 million euros, which takes the total amount of funding for the project up to 6.3 million euros.

From 1st January 2020 researchers will start working in the enclosed ecological plant cultivation system and bakery.

The consortium will learn how to create the ideal environment for the efficient production of wheat crops, as well as other plants that could be included in bread to increase its nutritional value.

Upstream R&D Director at Puratos Filip Arnaut said of the project: “We are bringing together various knowledge domains and expertise in order to answer a very important question: how can we further improve nutritional value, sustainability and the efficient use of energy to produce food – here bread, one of our main specialties – today, but also tomorrow in more challenging environments.”

Urban Crop Solutions (UCS), a solution provider for vertical farming, developed the plant growth infrastructure the project will use, and will further engineer a variable climate biosphere, a hermetically sealed building in which different climatic conditions can be simulated to support the growth of a diverse range of crops, combined with human habitation.

The company will also work on the development of an AI algorithm to optimise crop growth and minimise the resource inputs. Magics Instruments, a technology company specialised in the development of semiconductor chips and machine learning-based smart sensors, will focus on the automation of pollination and work with Urban Crop Solutions to investigate how artificial intelligence can optimise crop growth.