Voice on air: DENIS CHEREAU – IMPROVE, the European platform for protein valorisation

Dear Denis, thank you very much for accepting this interview for Protilla’s blog.

It is a pleasure to have the chance to talk with you about Improve, as the European platform for research and development fully dedicated to proteins valorisation. Regarding the big market and innovation opportunity generated by plant proteins, could you tell us more about what services IMPROVE can offer to enhance plant proteins functionality and characterization?

IMPROVE is an R&D platform, started in 2014 with 27 people on the team right now. We developed competencies in four different axes, two in the pilot, one in the lab, and a more intellectual one. So, in the pilot, we can do dry processing and simulate classical or innovating processing, as to fractionate seeds products, but also diversified products like algae, insects, or other microorganisms. We do the same for wet processing since we have also wet processing capabilities, where we can work on very diversified raw materials. For dry processing, the aim is usually to produce protein concentrates, and for the wet fractionation is more to produce protein isolates or protein hydrolyzates. Then, there are competencies in the lab, as we can characterize samples, coming from a pilot or coming from customers. We can do composition, digestibility, functional properties, panel testing to evaluate the organoleptic profile. The latter, the intellectual support, we can do a literature review, patent auditing, training, brainstorming sessions, and plenty of supporting activities where we just need computers and brains.

There are many challenges to overcome when we talk about producing (new) food proteins: from taste, nutritional profile, functionality, price and sustainable process. Generally speaking, could you give us a ranking of which among these challenges are the most difficult and the easier to achieve?

I think that a lot is coming from the raw material because it will have a major impact on all the topics list you were mentioning. First of all, the price will have a very huge impact on the final ingredient cost, as well as the positioning of the ingredient in the market. So, if you pick the right or wrong raw material, the general success of the project will be engaged. The second key element from the raw material is the composition, if it is rich or not in protein. Also, do you have a lot of fats or anti-nutritional factors? These will help or jeopardize the product you are willing to implement? So again, the selection of the raw material is a key factor in this process, and everything we do in IMPROVE is to try to help customers to find the shortest way at the cheapest cost for processing the raw material. Raw material can be some seed coming from the field, from fermenters, or insect production, or can be also a co-product from the agri-food industry. We are working on a diversified range of products, and each time we try to help the customers to well adapt the process through the raw material, and to adapt the process to the final market they want to reach. Because the aim is not always to reach very high purification. Maybe just concentrate obtained by using the right processing can be very useful for a certain application.

Regarding the functional properties, I think it is a challenging question since one part is coming from the raw material itself. For example, if you start from potato you will have soluble protein, with very good gelling properties, and there is nothing you can do against it, except if you do the wrong processing. For example, if you thermo-coagulate the protein then you will lose all the benefits of the solubility and gelling properties. So, it is a combination of the raw material you will select and the process you are developing, which needs to protect as much as you can the native properties of the protein. Another exemple is given by the soy industry that has developed a lot of technologies to improve a little bit the functional property of an existing protein. You can do thermo-treatment, high-pressure treatment, gentle enzymatic treatment, to modulate these activities. But after all, there aren’t any methods that can change completely these properties.

If we talk about the different process to extract plant proteins, what are the current challenges in terms of economic and environmental sustainability?

For the economy, I see right now in the market a big trend to go to high-quality protein ingredients. When I say high quality, I mean that it has a light color, low off-note profile, and has high solubility. The most challenging market is the dairy alternative one. It is a fast-growing market, and people are seeking for protein that will fit very well in this market. So, solubility and neutral taste are key elements to succeed in this market. And this market is generating a good price, because usually when you have good qualities you can pretend to a premium price.

From a sustainability standpoint, it is a different story. First of all, it has to be said that producing ingredients is not the most sustainable way to eat protein. I will give you a very basic example: if you eat lentils, you will eat protein from lentils, and it is fine. Then, if you eat proteins extract from lentils you will consume indirectly more energy and water, so in terms of sustainability, you are not going in the right direction. But at one moment we need also to offer a very diversified range of products, and as people in rich countries are less and less willing to cook and to prepare their meal by themselves, it is necessary to go through the processing of the ingredients.

The second thing is that by the selection of raw materials we can be more or less sustainable. For example, pulses are very well adapted to sustainability because of the capability of these seeds to fix nitrogen from the atmosphere, so you can reduce fertilizers usage, which is extremely important. This is not the case for the big majority of cereals, oilseeds, etc. So, by selecting the raw material you can impact the sustainability of your projects.

But what about when you compare protein ingredients with the benchmark, the classical animal-driven ingredient?

Well, we have in ITERG a team of people experts in environmental studies, and there was a huge work already done on oilseeds, and now we are starting in that analysis of the proteins. I don’t have yet the answers, but I think that a very simplified way to see the answer is to look at the price. If you buy lentils, it will be around 1-2 euro per kg. If you extract protein from lentils, a concentrate it will cost around 1 to 3 euros, for a concentrate the cost will be around 2 €/kg and for an isolate it will be between 5-10 euros. So, you will start to evaluate the impact of your processing just by looking at the cost. And certainly, the impact of the cost will be evolving in parallel with the impact on energy usage, water usage. This is a simple way to check if you are playing with or against sustainability. And then, I will continue the logic with animal-based proteins. Depending on which animal, the price, expressed in euro per kg of protein, will be between 15-150 euro, In nice piece of beef, the protein price will be around 150 euro per kg. And this reflects the quantity of plant-based protein an animal needs to eat to produce the protein. So, the more efficient will be the animal in the biotransformation, the cheaper will be protein cost. That’s where poultry, fish, or pork are more efficient than ruminants. So, just by looking at the price, you can have a good vision of what can be good and not so good for sustainability.

Until few years ago, the protein ingredients landscape was mostly dominated by soy. Now thanks to the current research we can see a wider offer of plant proteins. What can you tell us about major trends in protein ingredients?

The major trend of the plant-based protein market for the next 5-10 years, will be for the soy to continue to grow and to continue to be by far the number 1 player. Today soy is about 65% of the plant-based protein ingredient, wheat is around 30%, the pea is less than 5%, and 1% for all the other proteins (rice, potato, etc…).

Why do we think that soy will still be the number 1 player in the plant-based market? It is because of the availability of the raw material. Soy seeds production is about 400 million tons per year, while pea is only 11 million, fava beans 4 million, lupin 1 million. So, as you see, when the product is available there can be much more chance to grow and to continue to be well positioned. The second dimension is the price. The wheat is very cheap, around 250 euro per ton, while the soy is a little more expensive (around 450 €/t), but it contains so many proteins that if you translate the price in protein content it results very cheap. Pea is quite competitive, because of the price too. In Western Europe, the pea seeds are 280 euro per ton. Fava bean is not too bad, it is a little bit higher in price, but it is containing more protein, so the price can justify it. Lentil is not well-positioned, because it is very expensive. If you find some lentils are around 1000 euro per ton, containing 22-25% of proteins. For an isolate, just the price of the raw material will be 4 euros, and then we have to add the process cost, all the R&D work, and the packaging. The results will be really expensive. Only cheap raw material, highly abundant, having a simple process, will continue to grow fast.

And do you think the free-from trends will impact the position of soy and wheat?

I speak very often about the noisy minorities: representing very few people but very noisy ones. Very dynamic and aggressive and militant on the media. If you hear the media, we are almost all vegan, we do not eat any more animal products, we do not eat gluten, just organic products. Well, I think that it is wrong. If you look at the global picture of the world,  vegans are still very few, the organic market is less than 5%; so, it means that 95% of the world population is just eating regular products and meat (when can afford to do it). And we all believe that this “free from” trend will be a big wave flooding the entire world. I think that there will be a market, for this high demanding often high educated, and very specific customer, but it will still be a minority. There is a global trend which is what we call flexitarian, but a person can be flexitarian for various reasons. For example, if you do not have enough money, you just reduce the animal-based intake and you just eat more plant-based products. The flexitarians are just people coming back to more reasonable practices because there are no reasonable needs to eat meat or animal-based product at any meal. And I think people can be flexitarians for either beliefs or economic reasons. I strongly believe that animal-based products will see the price rising in the coming years.