CPUT’s brewers have done it again.

The team scooped two awards at the recent South African Breweries’ 9th Annual SAB Intervarsity Beer Brewing Challenge, which took place in Johannesburg.

The competition provides a platform for up and coming brewers to show off their brewing skills.

Competing against 14 micro-brewing teams, this year’s team walked off with the coveted Ben Lamaletie Brewing Legend Floating Trophy for the best label. The team’s label was inspired by Darth Vader, a fictional character in Star Wars. They also clinched third place for their cider.

This year’s team consisted of Cara Vlok, Gareth Williams, Ryan Morkel, Lizaan Jacobs, who are enrolled in the Food Science and Technology programme, as well as lecturers Veronique Meyer and Dr Zanephyn Keyser.

CPUT made its debut in the competition in 2013 and to date have clinched several awards.

In 2014 the CPUT team used rooibos as a key ingredient and walked away with the Ben Lamaletie IBD Intervarsity Beer Brewing Challenge Floating Trophy, the top honour Castle Lager Best Bru Award, as well as the Carling Black Label Champion Lager.

Last year, the CPUT team clinched the top prize in the specialty beer category for Tipsy Inyanga beer, an African take on a Belgian Witbier. The CPUT team incorporated the tricky buchu herb into the winning brew along with naartjie, sweet root (a liquorice flavoured plant), wheat and malt.

The teams utilize the microbrewery that is housed in the Food Science and Technology Department on the Bellville Campus to brew, ferment and package their products.

Dr Keyser says he is proud of this year’s team.

“It is the first time that we won the best label award. It came as a surprise to us,” says Keyser.

He says they will enter the competition next year with a new group of brewers who are set to start brewing early in 2017.

* Competition background: SAB has assisted South African universities in setting up microbreweries. CPUT is one of the recipients of a microbrewery, which is used to train Food Science and Technology students in the area of brewing.

Written by Candes Keating
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Provides coverage for the Engineering and Applied Sciences Faculties; the Bellville and Wellington Campuses, and research and innovation news.

Prof Victoria Jideani from the Food Science and Technology Department is the first female inventor at CPUT to register a patent.

In 2012 her innovative efforts paid off when she developed a probiotic yoghurt-like beverage.

The probiotic beverage is produced from a vegetable milk product, which Jideani tailor-made from Bambara groundnut, a locally grown legume. Current probiotic yoghurt products are manufactured from cow, goat or soya milk.

Widely grown in South Africa and other parts of the continent, the Bambara groundnut is underutilised and sold in its raw form as a health snack.

But with Jideani harbouring a passion for underutilised crops, she grabbed the opportunity to turn the Bambara groundnut into something much more than just a health snack.

“One day I began to think of ways to add more value to this specific legume that is underutilised,” she says.

Jideani spent two years working on the project and her tireless efforts have paid off.

This natural probiotic beverage boasts a number of health benefits for consumers.

It is cholesterol free, low in fat as well as rich in protein, fibre and antioxidants. It also boasts added probiotics for maintaining good balance and composition of intestinal flora.

“The product is suitable for lactose intolerant suffers and yet acceptable to the general market”, she says.  

INNOVATION:  The product produced by Prof Jideani

Jideani is continuing with her ground breaking research and has registered other patents related to the Bambara groundnut and has also established a research group that is exploring the potential of the Bambara groundnut as a food security crop and nutraceutical that could be utilized in functional food, pharmaceutical industry/medicine.

Earlier this year Drs Jane Okafor and Bukola Adedayo, two postdoctoral fellows joined the team and will look at the medicinal potential of the Bambara groundnut and its products (milk and probiotic beverage) as a functional food in health and disease and its relationship to indigenous knowledge systems.

Written by Candes Keating
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Provides coverage for the Engineering and Applied Sciences Faculties; the Bellville and Wellington Campuses, and research and innovation news.

The uses of a widely grown, yet underutilized African indigenous legume species is being explored at CPUT.

Drs Jane Okafor and Bukola Adedayo, two postdoctoral fellows based at the Food Science and Technology Department are currently exploring the medicinal potential of the Bambara groundnut and its products (milk and yoghurt) as a functional food in health and disease and its relationship to indigenous knowledge systems.

The study forms part of a broader CPUT exploration into the potential of the Bambara groundnut as a food security crop and nutraceutical that could be utilized in functional food, pharmaceutical industry/medicine, which is spearheaded by Prof Victoria Jideani.

Okafor, a researcher from the Federal Institute of Industrial Research Oshodi in Nigeria, says the African continent has a long and rich history of communities using indigenous plants for a wide variety of medicinal purposes.

“Many people claim that various crops like the Bambara groundnut have medicinal properties, however, there is no scientific proof to validate these claims that are based on undocumented indigenous or traditional knowledge,” she says.

Okafor says in parts of South Africa, communities who grow or have access to the Bambara groundnut are using it as a food as well as a medicinal source, hailing it as a remedy for diarrhea, nausea, eye disease as well as morning sickness in pregnant women.

To validate these claims, Okafor together with Adedayo, a researcher from the Federal University of Technology Akure in Nigeria, will explore the phytochemical components, anti-oxidant, anti-microbial and anti-inflammatory properties of the Bambara groundnut and its therapeutic application in specific disease condition.

Their study, which is funded by the National Research Foundation, will focus on the areas of KwaZulu Natal, Mpumalanga and Limpopo, where communities widely grow and make use of this legume species.

“If we can back these claims with scientific proof, then more people can make use of it,” says Okafor, adding that it will also bring about the documentation of the indigenous knowledge associating the Bambara groundnut with medicinal benefits/values.

Although widely grown in Africa and easily available, Adedayo says this indigenous legume species is an underutilised food crop.

“Many people do not know about this crop. Currently it is only subsistence farmers growing it,” she says.

Adedayo says they hope the outcome of their study will boost the profile of the Bambara groundnut, as well as its potential as a crop that can contribute to food and nutrition security in South Africa and the rest of the African continent.

“Apart from being an indigenous crop, it has a lot of advantages over other crops,” she says.

“It doesn’t need a lot of water and as a result it grows easily in arid regions.”

Okafor and Adedayo’s work will contribute to the body of work already in progress on the Bambara groundnut at CPUT.

Currently Jideani along with a researcher Claudine Diedericks hold patents for the Bambara groundnut insoluble and soluble fibres.

Jideani with researcher Yvonne Murevanhema have also patented a probiotic yoghurt-like beverage that is produced from a vegetable milk product, tailor-made from the Bambara groundnut

Written by Candes Keating
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Provides coverage for the Engineering and Applied Sciences Faculties; the Bellville and Wellington Campuses, and research and innovation news.