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Human practices Our concept has come a long way; we had done many thought experiments before we went to a final idea of the edible pearl. Throughout the process, we had much interaction with experts in different fields. Kombucha and vitamins Kombucha is an easy-to-produce drink based on fermented tea known in multiple cultures for thousands of years. Fermentation takes place by putting a SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast) on top of the tea. Let it ferment for a (few) week(s) until it has a pH that you like. Kombucha production is accessible and cheap; it has the potential to reach a multitude of cultures and areas around the world. It is a source of prebiotics, and it could introduce beneficial effects on the gut microbiome. Since it contains many micro-organisms and has a significant market value, it seemed the optimal starting goal for us. Professor Dr Peter Vandamme (21/02/20), an expert in fundamental and industrially applicable microbial diversity, provided us with the theoretical background of kombucha. To further investigate the content surrounding kombucha, we looked deeper into what makes it a popular drink. The popularity of the drink, it is one of the most popular low-alcoholic fermented beverages in the world, comes from the claimed health benefits. However, there are no clinical trials to study the health benefits of kombucha that can support health claims. Furthermore, the commercial kombucha often contains lots of added sugars to appeal to the public in general. So we could try to find a way to support health claims, make kombucha healthier or help with struggles present in current kombucha production facilities. For the latter, we talked to an expert in the field, Yannick Claerman (06/03/2020) from Yugen kombucha in Gent, Belgium. The everyday struggles identify themselves in the balance between natural shelf life and extended shelf life by pasteurization or UHT treatment. We did not find these topics appealing to us, so we moved on. Eventually, we decided that we wanted to incorporate vitamin producing bacteria in the SCOBY due to the high incidence of vitamin deficiencies.

Vitamin deficiencies occur all over the world and can be linked with insufficient access to a variable diet, low movement, short time in the sun and disease. Many products have added vitamins to fight the general deficiencies present in society. But these added vitamins are produced synthetically, and this brings a huge cost. So letting micro-organisms produce vitamins for you in a beverage that you can make at home would be cost-effective, maintain accessibility for all and easy. If we were to add the micro-organisms in the SCOBY permanently, then it would be a sustainable solution for vitamin deficiencies. To define what vitamins are genuinely giving a benefit to society, we contacted Professor Dr John Van Camp (8/7/20). He pointed out the critical fact that vitamin deficiencies are often due to a person lifestyle and is depending on the age and cultural background. So, there is no 1-fits-all solution for vitamin deficiencies. If we were to add vitamins to a drink, it would not be any different from existing supplements; even though our solution is more accessible, cheaper and feels more natural. The vitamins would miss their site of uptake in the gut or stomach, as is the case for most supplements now. Furthermore, there were technical issues to the production of vitamins in the SCOBY. As a first, vitamins are not stable in the low pH range that a reasonable kombucha demands. Second, the vitamins producible by GRAS micro-organisms is minimal. As a final item, due to the low stability in pH, we would not be able to introduce a DIY SCOBY. No DIY SCOBY means that our kombucha would only be accessible through stores and it would not be personalized. Access through stores would limit accessibility to only more wealthy countries and layers of the society that can afford our kombucha. Whilst we see that more poor people have a less diversified diet, and they need vitamin supplementation the most. An edible pearl

Experts, literature, society and thought experiments led us to the conclusion that we needed something different. Our team obtained crucial input by Prof Dr Marjan De Mey and Prof Dr Wim van Crieckinge for the concept development of a carrier system. The carriers system concept can protect vitamins or other supplements when ingested. It makes delivery towards a target site in the body possible. We contacted two experts in the field of business to assess what is necessary to bring such a concept to the market. Prof Dr Benedikt Sas (22/07/20) gave us a reality check about the legislation and safety demands that is obliged for bringing the pearls to the market. As a European country, we fall under the legislation of EFSA. EFSA has the most stringent rules in the world, making it hard for new products to obtain specific health claims. However, this gives certainty to the consumer that the food contains what the package says. Furthermore, food products will most certainly meet the customers' expectations when everything is verified. We want to give our customers value by buying our products, it is a way to establish a brand with a trustworthy name and to show we really care about the wellbeing of our customers. Although bringing the idea to the market and applying to all obligatory rules is highly challenging, we still believed in our concept. Hence we scheduled a meeting with Tom Van Damme (15/07/2020) to discuss the potential of our pearl both towards customers as towards the marketing. Tom Van Damme is one of the brains behind DO!, 'durf ondernemen!' or 'Dare to venture!'. He aids students with their start-ups by bringing them in contact with the right partners. His opinion was optimistic about the potential of our pearl, and we decided to stick to the concept. And so our edible pearl, Bubbly, was born. With this pearl came an enhanced potential so we went back to the literature to explore what the maximal benefit could be and how we can influence the world. We contacted Prof. Dr Marie Joossens (27/8/2020) and Prof Dr Tom van de Wiele for in-depth information about the gut microbiome and specific delivery of supplements and vitamins. It became clear to us that inflammation in the gut is one of the main reasons for lots of different physical and mental illnesses to people all around the world. Most anti-inflammation drugs give a lot of side effects and influence a lot more than just the gut. Inflammation in the GI-tract is most of the time related to dysfunctional behaviour of the gut microbiome. When adding 1+1, we can conclude that two things are necessary to let our consumers benefit. The first is to reduce inflammation, for this, we looked to flavonoids. We contacted Ir Lien De Wannemaeker for more information about the production of naringenin. From our discussion we noticed potential for improvement in the production of naringenin. If this would be successful, we could create the basics for producing naringenin in a more suitable host. Due to corona, time was not in our favour, but we were still able to make substantial progress in setting the basics for further cloning and trials procedures. If the production process is continued, naringenin would be affordable to multiple layers of society. The second was to enhance the growth of bacteria that can restore the gut microbiome, for this we investigated kojibiose and vitamin B12. Prof Dr Tom Desmet his research team has found a new way to produce massive amounts of kojibiose. Our pearl needs a specific formulation so it can reach people worldwide, it should also be tasty and easy to implement in different cultures. We encountered Petra Van Gucht and Prof Dr Paul van der Meeren to discuss formulation of our pearl. Petra Van Gucht is founder of Cosmo Group and offered to aid us in the formulation and testing of the pearls. We contacted Dr Nathalie Michiels (5/10/2020) to gain further insights in what the current treatments are and if there is potential as an alternative or adjuvant treatment for depression. But why depression? Depression is one of the most common mental disorders worldwide and still copes with a negative connotation. This is a disorder/illness that knows no boundaries, makes no difference in respect to culture, ethnicity, wealth, or gender. Everyone around the world can be affected by it at any time. With our concept we can help millions worldwide and we also want to make the topic more discussable. To bring people awareness that it has different causes and that an easy to take supplementation can offer solace to people suffering from depression. The drugs that are now available cause multiple side effects. Some examples are mood swings, losing appetite, losing libido, nausea, fatigue, etc …. All unwanted effects when already suffering from depression. Finally, we wanted to discuss the hypothetical pitfalls of our edible pearls when bringing it to the market. We talked to Dr Massimiliano Simons of the department philosophy and Moral sciences. Key elements from this discussion are given below. There could be a moral hazard about our product, it is a supplement that can be a treatment or an adjuvant towards depression. Depression often finds its cause in multiple things but let us assume that the trigger is a toxic environment in this case. Would the free distribution of supplements make people less willing to change their trigger? Would it create a mindset ‘as long as I take the supplementation, I do not need to change my environment’? These are questions that can also be applied to the modern, medicine targeted treatments of depression and other mental diseases. “Let’s take a pill and everything will disappear”. We do not want this to occur, so we need to invest in sensibilisation that the supplement is ought to be taken as an adjuvant together with therapy or as a treatment when the patient is willing to work on the other triggers of the depression as well. Would there be a lot of differences between populations? Yes, and we do acknowledge that. Most studies are based on white western males and hence do not apply to the world’s population. A solution to circumvent this bias is by doing clinical trials all over the world and including people from different cultural, ethnical, gender and wealth backgrounds. To include people that have less access to medicines our supplement can be a solution, in certain countries medicines and access to doctors is awfully expensive. Although as stated above, our supplement should not be an alternative to true health care. It could be useful to include politics, so our supplement can be refunded. This could reduce the boundary between rich and poor people and their respective access to our pearl. Would there be a difference according to culture? Yes, as depression is treated differently depending on the culture, so will our edible pearl be. We do believe that the pearl being a supplement and not a medicine will make a huge difference. Advertisement should thus be adapted towards the culture that is being targeted.