News - Waste To Treasure

RNZ interview with Jack Chen

Listen to W2T team member Jack as he shares insights into his technology and its role within the Waste to Treasure programme.A great example of how innovative thinking can turn environmental challenges into high-value opportunities.

Insights and Innovation at Scion Workshop with our Stakeholder Advisory Board

Just back from last week’s two-day workshop at Scion, where we met with our key stakeholders to exchange ideas, review progress, and discuss the path ahead. We had some really engaging discussions, learned a lot, and shared updates on our technical and impact developments. It’s always inspiring to see how collaboration across teams and partners… Continue reading Insights and Innovation at Scion Workshop with our Stakeholder Advisory Board

Professor conjures up new sustainable foods

Can unwanted fruit and byproducts from juice and wine be transformed into new sustainable foods? That’s the question being investigated by a team led by University of Auckland Professor of Food Science Siew-Young Quek. Follow the link for more details

Research collaborations awarded more than $7m from Catalyst programme

Congratulation to team members Siew-Young, Billy, Shan and Paul for securing new funding for a 2025 Catalyst: Strategic New Zealand–Singapore Research Programme, tackling challenges in sustainable food innovation. This innovative project will transform fruit and agricultural residues into high-value, health-promoting food products using bacterial cellulose (BC) and mushroom-derived mycelium biomass (MB). The bio-fermented materials will be formulated into snack bars, beverages, and vegan meat alternatives. The New Zealand lead is Professor Siew-Young Quek, Science, with co-PIs Professor Paul Kilmartin, Dr Shan Yi, Dr Rebecca Deed, and Dr Billy Yi Yang, and collaborators from Massey University and the Malaghan Institute.

A warm welcome to our new PhD students

A warm welcome from the team to new PhD students arriving over the last months, have a look at our Team page. Also have a read of the short profile from new PhD student at UoC Ben Williams ,who will look at Industry and Consumer Barriers and Enablers to Adoption.

Stakeholder Advisory Board Meeting hosted at Goldie Estate

On 12 November 2024, we hosted our first in-person Stakeholder Advisory Board meeting at the Goldie Estate Vineyard, the University of Auckland’s working vineyard on Waiheke Island. We presented our latest experiments, findings and updates, followed by a discussion and exchange of ideas with our advisory board members. The feedback received during the discussions was highly valuable and will inform the next phases of our work. We extend our thanks to all participants for their contributions and engagement, as well as to Goldie Estate for providing an inspiring environment for the meeting.

Welcome to our Research Fellows Billy and Ralph

A warm welcome to our Research Fellows, Billy and Ralph, from the Waste to Treasure team. Check out their bios to learn more about their backgrounds.

Turning grape marc into value with a novel engineering bioprocess

Have a look at what one of our key researchers Shan is doing to create a new biochemical engineering process that uses anaerobic microorganisms to transform the organic materials in grape marc into valuable chemicals.

Prof. Tripti Singh recognised by “Women Ambassador – Creating the Future of Wood Science” award

Our co-science leader Tripti has been recognised by The Society of Wood Science and Technology (SWST) for her contribution to wood science and her renowned research excellence. Congratulations from the whole team. This not only highlights Tripti’s contributions and leadership in the wood science sector but also helps to raise the profile of our research programme.

Hitting the marc to reuse wine waste

From wine to LPs, Professor Paul Kilmartin sees the impact of chemistry everywhere. Have a look at the full article and Paul’s interview on YouTube (further down the article).