# Sensory Evaluation of Vanillin Obtained by Fungi in the Solid-State Fermentation from Agri-Food Industry By-Products

## TL;DR

This study explores using fungi to produce natural vanillin from food industry by-products, finding it can produce flavors as appealing as natural vanilla.

## Contribution

This is the first study to perform sensory analysis on biotechnologically produced vanillin via solid-state fermentation.

## Key findings

- Vanillin produced via SSF from agri-food by-products showed better sensory properties than synthetic vanillin.
- Vanillin from P. chrysosporium and F. culmorum was comparable to commercial vanilla bean extract in flavor quality.
- SSF using a single-use bag bioreactor successfully produced vanillin at bench scale.

## Abstract

Vanillin is the compound widely used in the food industry as a flavoring agent. Currently, chemically synthesized vanillin provides the majority of the world’s supply. Due to the increase in consumer awareness, there is a change in preferences towards natural food additives. The main goal of this research was to obtain vanillin through Solid-State Fermentation on agri-food by-products such as brewer’s spent grain, wheat bran, and linseed oil cake. A specially designed SSF culture single-use bag bioreactor made of a poliamide-6 foil sleeve was used to conduct the process on a bench-scale (600 g of dry medium). After extraction and purification, obtained vanillin samples were subjected to sensory analysis to determine whether the origin of microbiologically obtained vanillin affects its aromatic properties. The panelists assessed that the extracts obtained from the cultures of P. chrysosporium CBS246.84 and F. culmorum MUT5855 proved to be attractive flavors as they showed more attractive sensory properties than synthetic vanillin and were comparable to commercially available vanilla bean extract. This is the first study to include sensory analysis of vanillin obtained biotechnologically by the SSF method.