Wool protein hydrolysates offer promise as functional ingredient in pet foods as well as other foods and feeds.

Tim Lundeen 1, Feedstuffs Editor

August 17, 2018

2 Min Read
N&H TOPLINE: Wool may offer dietary protein source
Nenadpress/iStock/Thinkstock

Developing new products from available resources often requires scientists to think differently, and such new products can offer new revenue streams for animal agriculture sectors.

Researchers with New Zealand's AgResearch have discovered that proteins from wool can be added to the diets of animals to improve their health, opening up a new market for the sheep industry.

The positive findings in the diets of domesticated cats open up "exciting possibilities" for new uses of sheep wool to improve digestive health for a broader range of animals and, potentially, people, AgResearch said.

The findings have been published in the Royal Society of Chemistry's Food & Function journal.

“There is a lot of work going on to discover new uses of wool to support the sheep industry in New Zealand,” said Dr. Jolon Dyer, AgResearch science group leader for food and bio-based products. “The research is telling us that sheep wool has many useful attributes, and one of those now appears to be proteins derived from the wool that could be used as a dietary supplement to improve digestion and nutrition and, therefore, overall health.”

Scientists used a method called controlled hydrolysis to extract the wool proteins. These protein hydrolysates taken from the wool were then added as an ingredient in a pet food formulation targeted towards cats and were compared against standard cat food formulations, AgResearch said.

According to the research abstract, the wool hydrolysates performed similarly to a dietary fiber product based on cellulose.

The findings indicate that the wool protein hydrolysates offer promise as a functional ingredient in pet foods and also as a new nutritional ingredient in foods generally.

AgResearch senior scientist Dr. Santanu Deb-Choudhury, who led the study with fellow scientist Dr. Emma Bermingham, said the hydrolysates offer real potential as a supplement for pet diets.

The next steps for the research will be to study the effect of the wool hydrolysate on animals other than cats.

“There’s a lot of potential in terms of how it can add to the well-being of pets and other animals and even people, but we do need to see how it stacks up in the further research,” Deb-Choudhury said.

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