Health and wellbeing are a trend that is driving a shift in people’s diets worldwide. In recent years, the search for healthy, nutritious foods has boosted demand for plant-based proteins. According to the latest forecasts, by 2035, consumption of processed products based on plant protein will increase by more than 14%, rising from 13 million metric tonnes in 2020 to approximately 100 (Statista, Dec 2021).
In this context, the FOOD+i Cluster has promoted the creation of a business consortium of eight Spanish companies with a strong track record in innovation in the food and beverage sector, committed to collaborating to address the challenge of finding new plant protein sources to complement the supply of the sources most widely used today by the sector, such as soy protein. New plant protein sources will make it possible to diversify diets, provide additional nutrients, and add more variety and flavour to diets.
The plants under study include broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, turnips, collard greens, common kale, moringa, carob, sweet lupinus (from which lupin is extracted), tiger nuts, broad beans, and various fungi.
The companies involved in the CRESCERE project seek to increase the added value of plants with high nutritional and chemopreventive value through the development of new uses and applications.
A project funded by CDTI under its demanding CIEN strategic projects call and aligned with the European Farm-to-Fork strategy, which pursues sustainability and the circular economy of the food chain in the production of high-nutritional-value proteins from vegetables (plant based).
The research team, made up of scientists and technicians from Kimitec, Carinsa, Ingredalia, Interal, Zyrcular Foods, Delafruit, DomusVi and Tecnopackaging, has come together under an open research model (Open Innovation) that will enable them to complement one another in the development of new plant-protein-based products.
To achieve a qualitative and quantitative leap in the technological areas addressed in the CRESCERE project, the companies are supported by the collaboration of the following research organisations: CTIC CITA, TECNALIA FOUNDATION, AITIIP, CAJAMAR FOUNDATION and the University of Vigo.
KIMITEC, which is also the project’s technical coordinator, will be responsible for scaling up, and for obtaining and characterising new ingredients.
In this regard, KIMITEC will also be involved in improving the protein contribution and the microproteins present in the target plant crops through the use of biostimulants and probiotics, which will enhance the organoleptic, chemopreventive and nutritional properties of food products from the source.
INGREDALIA, a Navarre-based biotechnology company that develops, manufactures and markets natural functional ingredients for industry from plant by-products, will focus on researching pathways to obtain the protein fraction and compounds of interest at laboratory scale. It will be supported by CARINSA, which will lead the research to obtain protein preparations suitable for application and stability studies.
To ensure the use of these ingredients in the processed food sector, CRESCERE includes processing companies: INTERAL, DOMUSVI, DELAFRUIT and ZYRCULAR, which will research technologies and processes for the formulation of multiple matrices using the project’s ingredients. In addition, DOMUSVI will lead the study of the functionality of the identified peptides and the foods developed.
Finally, to cover the entire value chain, TECNOPACKAGING will research a sustainable packaging system to contain the prototypes developed by the processing companies.
CRESCERE is a project funded by the CIEN Strategic Projects programme (Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology, E.P.E.) and will have a total duration of four years, from January 2021 to December 2024.
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