FiE 2024: Peanuts positioned as sustainable protein as regulation encourages early introduction to infants
20 Dec 2024 | Golden Peanut
Peanuts are appealing to on-the-go snackers for their plant-based and high-protein appeal. But they are also emerging in infant foods. Bret Keough, strategic sales manager at Golden Peanut, points out that early introduction to peanuts (4-6 months of life) can drastically reduce the risk of developing a peanut allergy. He also shares how peanuts can play a role in regenerative agriculture.
This is Missy Green with Food ingredients first.
I'm here at FIE 2024 with Brett Keogh, and he is with Golden Peanuts.
So Brett, could you tell us what are some of the top trends you're seeing in peanut applications today?
So a lot of the top trends we're seeing right now are on the go snacks, things that are portable and highly nutritious and packed with protein, like protein bars, nutrition bars, that kind of thing, a lot of high protein beverages.
Hitting the shelves right now and one of the main ones that I'm seeing, especially as a young father, are infant foods and early introductory techniques and foods and philosophies.
So actually I personally use our 12% fat light roast peanut flour, mixed it in some infant cereal, and gave it to her.
She loved it, still eats it, one of her favorite snacks, and I have heard that.
Introducing the 1st 4 to 6 months of a baby's life helps to severely mitigate and I'm not going to say eliminate, but mitigate the risk of a peanut allergy forming later on.
So is that new science that's coming out?
It's not necessarily new.
I think that it's more getting that information and science into parents' hands, and we've seen a lot of countries and individual US states actually pass legislation with their health departments to really encourage early introductory techniques to try to mitigate it in their.
Populations, so they're actually encouraging infants at a federal, not federal, but at a state level, in federal level in some countries, yeah, like Australia just passed something earlier this year.
I'm not sure the details of it, but I do know that it's meant to help early introduction into Australian children.
So I think a lot of other countries are seeing that and taking note and states as.
So would you consider peanuts to be a plant protein?
I would actually, and I think the only reason it's not really considered in that conversation of plant-based protein, which if you've been to FIE is everywhere, is because of the allergen.
So that's why we're really trying to get that information out there and let parents know that early introduction works.
So what kind of sustainability credentials do peanuts have?
They're one of the most sustain sustainable commodities products out there.
For example, in the past two decades, US peanut growers in particular have been able to lower carbon emissions by 5%.
And when it comes to growing peanuts, water consumption is much lower than that of other nuts.
For example, it only takes 3.2 gallons to grow an ounce of peanuts where.
It takes about 25 gallons to grow an ounce of any other tree nut, as as being able to add nutrition and nitrogen back to the soil to grow other crops and help in crop rotations, so it's one of the most sustainable nuts there is.
