Services

The Tübitak Marmara Research Center (MAM) aims at becoming a world leader in science and technology with research, development and innovation capabilities in the areas of Energy Technologies, Climate Change and Sustainability, Materials Technologies and Life Sciences. The Food Institute focusses on ‘food processing technologies’, ‘food packaging and preservation’, nutrition and functional foods’ and ‘food safety and quality’

The Seafood Pilot Processing line consists of sub-lines for fish cleaning, portioning and filleting (grader, conveyor, filleting table, angle flow table, trimming table, pin bone removing, spinning product flow table, fish skinner, pressing & lifting system, labelling machine); formed product production (mixer & mincer, drying centrifuge, forming machine, flour coating machine, battering machine, crumbing machine, frying machine); smoked and canned fish production (salting table & brine mixture tank, carrying trolleys, can seaming machine, smoke chamber, smoked salmon slicing machine, portion cutter); packaging and pasteurisation equipment.

The advanced Food Safety Laboratory is equipped with analytical instruments such as GC-MS/MS, Q Exactive Orbitrap Mass Spectrometer; UPLCs with different detectors; ICP-MS for heavy metal and mineral analysis; Isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS) (equipment for determination of natural and synthetic samples based on their isotope ratios); Simulator of the Human Intestinal Microbial Ecosystem (SHIME) – being purchased: It is a validated in vitro model, simulating the complexity of the gastrointestinal tract. The equipment allows simulation of the full gastrointestinal tract from stomach to distal colon and includes all other basic instruments for safety and quality control of foods including fishery products.

Additionally, it has batch processing equipment and laboratory instruments for official food analysis laboratory such as; extraction systems (classical, supercritical, ultrasound-assisted, microwave-assisted extraction), drying systems (freeze-drying, spray drying, drum drying, tunnel drying), purification (chromatographic systems), encapsulation (fluidized bed drying, spray drying), characterization (chromatographs ftir, dsc, sem), LC-MS/MS, HPLC, GC, Spectrophotometer, microbiology laboratory, laboratory equipment for bioactivity analysis, rheological studies and texture analysis.

Additionally, it has batch processing equipment and laboratory instruments for official food analysis laboratory, such as:

• Extraction systems (classical, supercritical, ultrasound-assisted, microwave-assisted extraction),

• Drying systems (freeze-drying, spray drying, drum drying, tunnel drying),

• Purification (chromatographic systems),

• Encapsulation (fluidised bed drying, spray drying),

• Characterisation (chromatographs ftir, dsc, sem), LC-MS/MS, HPLC, GC,

• Spectrophotometer,

• Microbiology laboratory,

• Laboratory equipment for bioactivity analysis, rheological studies and texture analysis.

In summary, the services offered include the possibility of development of new food products, functional foods, food formulations, pilot scale-up, development and/or application of new extraction and purification techniques, characterisation, encapsulation, analytical tests, quality control, food safety studies, shelf life evaluation, in vitro studies on health effects of biocompounds, bioavailability, digestibility, sensory analysis, texture analysis, rheological analysis, utilisation of food processing by-products including fish by-products, food packaging studies.

Support offered

The services offered include the possibility of development of new food products, functional foods, food formulations, pilot scale-up, development and/or application of new extraction and purification techniques, characterization, encapsulation, analytical tests, quality control, food safety studies, shelf life evaluation, in vitro studies on health effects of biocompounds, bioavailability, digestibility, sensory analysis, texture analysis, rheological analysis, utilisation of food processing by-products including fish by-products, food packaging studies

Modality of access

Access can be both on-site and remote, based on actual costs. Users will be able to carry out processing and laboratory experiments themselves, but have the option of remote access by shipping samples for processing/laboratory analysis by local technicians or scientists.

The access includes experimental setup, to be defined according to the specific information provided by the users, organisation, sample pretreatment and analytical measurements, data processing and elaboration of results.

Typically, the provision of a service requires 1 week per access, even if it can vary according to the type of samples, the required analysis/process and the required conditions. It is estimated to provide 6 accesses of 1 week and 40 processing accesses and 80 lab accesses in 20 weeks for 5 years (4 weeks for each year).