LAUSR

BACKGROUND Bread represents a significant share of food wastes worldwide, so the extension of bread shelf life, together with innovative systems of waste treatment, might decrease the emissions by waste biomass degradation, extensive transportation, and storage necessities. In recent years, insects have been selected as a valuable tool for food waste treatment owing to their capability to transform low-value food waste into biomass with high nutritional value. Bakery wastes can be profitably used for this purpose. The object of this work was twofold: i) to measure the impact of flaxseed cake fortification on bread shelf life depending on the leavening agent (baker's yeast vs sourdough); ii) to evaluate the possible re-use of the stale bread fortified with flaxseed cake for Tenebrio molitor rearing. RESULTS Our results showed that the fortification seemed to slow down the hardening rate of bread, particularly if baker's yeast was utilized. Besides, the time necessary for mold appearance in sourdough bread doubled (from two to four days). The addition of flaxseed cake to the recipe determined an increase of its scrap consumption by T. molitor larvae. Besides, we observed a significant increase in the body mass of the T. molitor larvae fed with bread obtained with the brewer's yeast with respect to larvae fed with the sourdough. CONCLUSION Taken together, these preliminary data can indicate that sourdough bread fortified with 5% of flaxseed cake can represent a promising tool to reduce food waste and recycle bread scraps by a novel zero-waste approach. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.