Nutrient Enrichment of Agro–Industrial Waste Using Solid State Fermentation

Agro-industrial wastes are generated during the industrial processing of agricultural crops. Agro-industrial wastes are estimated to over 30% of worldwide agricultural productivity every year. The main aim of this study is improve of protein content and nutritional value of agro-industrial wastes by solid state fermentation to use as animal fodder. Fungal strain Trichoderma reesei were used with five different substrates from agro-industrial wastes, namely; peels of mango, orange, apple, banana and tomato. pH5 is the optimum condition for protein enrichment in different waste types. Crude protein content in fermented substrates with Trichoderma reesei increased from 23.35%, 21.88%, 24.13%, 16.19%, 9.5% to 78.17%, 30.05%, 28.84%, 19.82% and 14.06% for peels of tomato, mango, orange, apple and banana respectively. Tomato peel had the highest value of crude protein, so could be a good substrate for production of crude protein by Trichoderma reesei.