British company's bold idea: Turning chicken feathers into food

A company in the UK has launched a unique project that turns chicken feathers into edible protein, aiming to reduce waste from the poultry sector.

CNN (USA) channel reported on April 12 that the company has come up with an initiative called Kera Protein, which turns chicken feathers into fake meat through a 13-step intensive hydrolysis process.

Protein products derived from chicken feathers of Kera Protein. (Photo: CNN).

Protein derived from feathers could help solve a problem plaguing the food industry: excess waste. In the European Union (EU) alone, up to 3 million tons of poultry feathers are wasted each year. They are often burned or dumped in landfills.

In 2019, when Sorawut Kittibanthorn, founder of Kera Protein , was a student at Central Saint Martins University, he noticed that chicken feathers contained a lot of keratin - the protein that makes up hair, skin and nails. Kittibanthorn suggests that keratin can be converted into useful products.

Currently, Kera Protein collects chicken feathers from a local farm. Then, the chicken feathers are cleaned, ground into powder and mixed with acid and keratinase - an enzyme that breaks down the strong chemical bonds of keratin. Kera Protein heats the mixture at moderate temperature for 14 hours and then filters and cools it.

 A chicken farm in Verona, Italy. (Photo: AFP/TTXVN).

Kittibanthorn says the final product is a collagen-like powder texture that outperforms conventional protein sources in both nutrition and taste . He also claims that it also contains high levels of antioxidants similar to berries.

Kittibanthorn shared that food made from chicken feathers does not have a special flavor. Instead, it tends to absorb the flavors of the ingredients used together, thus allowing the cook to vary the flavor and texture as desired.

One chicken's feathers are enough to produce about 190 grams of protein. One of the biggest challenges is production costs. Chicken feathers must go through a 34-hour extraction process, which is both time-consuming and economically costly. Therefore, Kera Protein currently only cooperates with a single farm, maintaining production on a modest scale.

Kera Protein is in the process of applying for Novel Foods EU Certification so that their products can be legally sold on a large scale. This process is expected to take many years, although there are exceptions for certain sustainable innovations.