For more than 100 years, sugarcane has been synonymous with
Australian agriculture. Annually, mills dotted along the Queensland
and New South Wales coasts have left the air pungent with the
sticky, sweet smell of molasses, a sugar milling by-product.
This farming tradition has served the national economy well,
with raw sugar being the backbone of a host of rural economies.
However, in the early 1980s, the future of this tradition became
somewhat questionable. A highly competitive world market, combined
with a more environmentally aware global economy, saw a shift away
from raw sugar as a principal money spinner towards a new,
expanding field - the development of plant-based bioproducts. In
the ensuing decades, the Australian sugarcane industry and its key
stakeholders began to increase their investment into
biotechnology.
Enter the CRC for Sugar Industry Innovation through
Biotechnology (SIIB).
Established in 2003 with the aim of adding new value to
Australian sugarcane, the CRC SIIB brought together industry movers
and shakers, government, commercial groups, and some of the
countries' leading universities, to turn pipedreams into real,
tangible results for a struggling industry.
While the price of raw sugar has shot up in recent months, the
potential of sugarcane bioproducts and associated business
opportunities have by no means wavered. At the same time, the CRC
SIIB has begun to take centre stage with some impressive outcomes
from just seven years of research - Barrecote™ a natural
waterproofing agent, and GI WISE™, a natural GI lowering compound -
two research discoveries poised to become CRC success stories.
Barrecote™ is a paper waterproofing technology recently
developed and announced by the CRC SIIB. The first of its kind in
the world, it addresses one of the most significant drawbacks of
paper packaging - lack of resistance to water.
Numerous waterproofing methods have been developed and widely
used by manufacturers, ie wax, plastic and foil laminates, but all
known methods render paper non-recyclable. Barrecote™ technology
uses a novel process to alter compounds that occur naturally in
sugarcane (biopolymers), and when applied as an aqueous coating,
the substance renders paper waterproof while maintaining the
ability to recycle the end product.
Biopolymers required to produce Barrecote™ can be extracted from
sugarcane (namely from the bagasse) after the commercial extraction
of sugar so that the bagasse remains intact for other uses, such as
cogeneration of electricity. Recent evaluations have shown that
this technology is very cost competitive when compared to current
waterproofing technology used in paper manufacturing.
The potential commercial and environmental repercussions of this
technology are tremendous. Globally paper and paper products are
one of the most widely utilised and largest-by-volume packaging
materials used in manufacturing. Current global paper production is
estimated to be around 384 million tonnes per annum, just under 50
per cent of which is dedicated to packaging paper and board.
Landfill problems due to the inability to recycle packaging paper
and board are a real issue.
Barrecote™ is a 21st century success story: not only does it
have great green credentials, but commercial interest in the
product is enormous. Based on current progress in the commercial
arena, large-scale product trials could be run as soon as early
2010.
Equally as impressive as Barrecote™ is a new GI modifier - a
natural alternative to regulating and lowering blood sugar levels
to help manage Type 2 diabetes.
In recent years, the World Health Organisation has highlighted
the alarming increase in diabetes and its impact on human health.
At least 171 million people worldwide have diabetes, and this
figure is likely to more than double by 2030, according to the WHO.
Diabetes is a problem that it says is rapidly growing worse and, in
the case of Type 2 diabetes, can largely be attributed to lifestyle
factors.
In early 2009, scientists working for the CRC SIIB confirmed
they had proven that a family of compounds which occur naturally in
sugarcane plants successfully act to moderate carbohydrate
absorption in the blood stream. More importantly, the scientists
showed these compounds were 125 times more active in controlling
blood sugar than a leading pharmaceutical product.
As with Barrecote™, the compound can be extracted relatively
inexpensively from bagasse, while the bagasse remains intact and
available for further use as a source of power generation.
GI-Wise™ has performed extremely well in a host of laboratory
trials. Recent marketing assessments have shown the compounds could
form the basis of several new product options, including
nutraceutical/functional foods or food additives, complementary
medicines, or a candidate in the development of a new
high-performing pharmaceutical drug.The product is attracting a
great deal of commercial interest, and at the time of publication
of this issue of Fast Thinking a number of companies were engaged
in discussions with the CRC SIIB regarding a range of potential
product opportunities.
These research successes say a lot about 21st century research
and development opportunities and the potential for Australian
science to play a key role in the discovery and development of
'smart' bio-based products.
Commercial outcomes such as these are not simply due to great
research ideas - they owe a lot to innovative research and business
minds coming together to focus on the development of products with
a strong market niche.
The humble sugarcane crop finally makes its mark, and success
truly is sweet.
Julie Lloyd is the communication manager for the CRC SIIB. For
more information go to www.crcsugar.com, or contact Julie Lloyd on
0415 799 890.
