SHIFT20: The power of pea-based ingredients
16 Jul 2020 | Cosucra Inc.
Two years ago, Belgian producer of chicory and pea ingredients Cosucra estimated the North American plant-based market to be the largest in the world. Tapping into this market potential, Cosucra is highlighting three of its pea protein ingredients at SHIFT20: Pisane pea protein, Swelite pea cell-wall fiber and Nastar pea starch. Frank Truong outlines pea's strong nutritional profile, technical performance and sustainability credentials, as well as naming successes that its pea-based ingredients have had so far in North America.
This is Missy Green at Shift 20, and I'm here with Frank Thug, general manager for Kasura Inc.
Who's highlighting the company's pea-based ingredients.
So, Frank, what are the ingredients that you're highlighting today?
Hi, Missy, and welcome to the shift 20 attendees.
Kosukarink is very privileged to exhibit this year at a virtual conference.
And we are sharing with consumers and customers three of our pea-based ingredients.
First is our pipea protein, which received an IFT Innovation Award, last year.
Second is our swellitepe cell fiber.
And third is our nastar pea starch.
And these three pea-base ingredients are the ones that we have been working very closely with consumers and customers in USA, Canada, and Mexico, markets to, to show them how we can create customer value and address their needs for the plant-based market.
OK, very good.
And your North American subsidiary is quite new, right, just about 2 years ago that that began.
What drove that decision and how have you developed in that time?
Thanks, Missy.
Our Kosuka Inc.
Which is our North America subsidiary, was created 2 years ago by the board of directors, and we are a 168 year old company.
And the reason why the Kosuka Board of Directors made this investment to hire someone locally to be in this market day to day is to One, based on the fact that 41% of the total demand for plant-based protein globally was, is forecast to be in North America.
Second is to have someone with local expertise, to be able to provide local customer service and create prototype concepts that work that are more relevant with local taste profile.
And third, it's also developed a go to market team in USA, Canada, and Mexico and develop our operations here to serve consumers and customers locally 24/7.
And based on the focus of the last couple of years, Missy, we've been very privileged to have developed relationships with very important customers across all three countries.
We have been able to work hand in hand with these customers and doing benchtop, pipeline trials and commercial plant trials, and scaling up.
New product launches with these customers in all three countries.
And I, and I'm very proud, and pleased with the fact that customers do see the value of our pea protein, pea fiber, and pea starch as an integrated systems approach to address unmet consumer needs, across key categories such as plant-based, dairy, plant-based meat, bakery, cereals, snacks.
Ah, fish and seafood, categories.
That is an enormous range of categories.
Yes, these are, I would say these are the 7, areas that we have seen, consumer-custom interest in.
However, I would say that in terms of the market outlook, two of those categories where we have seen more consumer demand and customer needs for plant-based, ingredients such as ours are plant-based dairy and plant-based meat.
So, why is pea protein being considered by consumers versus other plant-based proteins out there?
Great question, Missy, as you, as consumers and customers think about alternative protein sources, we've actually Kasura Inc.
Has seen very good demand the last few years with RCMP protein.
And there's really, I'd like to share with you three key reasons.
One of them is sustainability.
Second is nutritional quality, and third is our technical characteristics, sensory attributes.
So when we think about sustainability, If you're a farmer, and you're considering what raw materials to grow, You can generate 33% more yield growing yellow pea protein versus soy protein islet.
And pea protein gives you 10 times more yield than 1 kg of beef.
Part of sustainability also is water consumption, which we know that there's a scarcity around the world.
To produce 1 kg of peat protein requires 3200 L of water.
And that is significantly less than producing 1 kg of beef, which requires 588,000 L of water.
And then energy, it takes about 160,000 kilojoules to produce 1 kg of beef versus 10,000 kilojoules for pea protein.
So there's big differences around sustainability.
Second is the nutritional quality.
So that we refer to that as the PDC score.
So for RPCP protein, our PDC score is 0.94 versus that of soy protein of 1.0.
And RP protein has about at least 0.1% higher protein quality on PDC and other pea manufacturers.
And then third, it's our technical characteristics.
So the reason why customers have been really accepting and see the value of our PCP protein is because, important characteristics such as emulsification, we have superior emulsification versus soy protein is it.
We have the same digestibility as soy protein is it.
We have the highest solubility.
Of all pea manufacturers.
We have higher protein content than other pea manufacturers.
And then you think about the sensory attributes, we, we have a neutral taste profile.
So a number of these, prop technical characteristics are reasons why customers have chosen our BCMP protein to, to be used in product launches the last 12 months that we never had before.
