They are invisible to the naked eye, grow in water and inside rocks, and you probably don’t know they exist. In the near future, however, they are going to be in your energy drinks, face masks, and food.
Microalgae are rich in antioxidants, protein, carbohydrates, fatty acids, and microelements and enjoy increasing demand as a raw ingredient in the pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and food and feed industries. They are readily renewable and take up very little space—advantages that make them a sustainable and easily accessible source of food and energy. The global biomass and microalgae product market is currently valued at 5–7 billion US dollars and has strong growth potential. For now, global microalgae production is concentrated in the hands of a small number of producers in Asia and Australia, but European companies have recently started to enter this market as well.
In Bulgaria, microalgae were poorly studied and had limited applications. This all changed when Professor Petya Stoykova of the Bulgarian AgroBioInstitute was selected to participate in ABF’s Agriculture for the Future program. She spent three months at Texas A&M University, where she worked with Professor Zhivko Nikolov. He was the one to spark her interest in microalgae. Soon after returning to Bulgaria, she initiated research in this field at the AgroBioInstitute in cooperation with Sofia University’s Biology Department. Her project, which aims to explore the properties of several microalgae species, including a local variety derived from the Belogradchik rocks, is supported by ABF. Leading researchers from Texas A&M are project mentors.
The study of microalgae and the development of a low-cost method of extracting maximum protein and carotenoids to use as food colorants are the two main goals of the research. The project also aims to encourage small and medium enterprises in Bulgaria to use microalgae in the development of innovative applications.
“Microalgae have enormous potential, even if we are still relatively unfamiliar with them here in Bulgaria. Spirulina was completely unknown in the 1970s, and most people would have laughed at the idea of drinking green beverages and taking algae supplements back then,” explains Maya Stoyneva, a biology professor at Sofia University.
