Food vs. fuel? No! Food from fuel residuals

Oncom is an Indonesian food, where fungi grow on peanuts and convert carbohydrates to protein. It is popular in Java island, particularly around a city names Bandung. People buy oncom and make different food from it.

It is now a few years that we are working together with the Swedish ethanol plant "Lantmännen Agroetanol" to integrate edible fungi into their process to produce more ethanol and also the fungi biomass. In this project, we have examined several edible fungi and the oncom stain gave the best results to grow on their residual streams and produce both ethanol and fungal biomass. The project is going well and is testing in large (up to 1000-m3) bioreactors. The fungal biomass obtained is examined to be used for both animal/fish feed and also human food. Last week, we had a little party at the university with eating oncom and the fungi in a delecious Indonesian food made by our Indonesian PhD student Lukitawesa.