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GreenProtein

Revalorisation of vegetable processing industry remnants into high-value functional proteins and other food ingredients

Project details

Type of project
Innovation Action - Demonstration
Project focus
Food, feed & cosmetics
Feedstock origin
Agri-food waste
Feedstock type
Crop residues
Project period
1 September 2016 - 31 May 2021
Status
Completed
CBE JU Contribution
€ 4 227 361,37
Call identifier
H2020-BBI-PPP-2015-02

Summary

The economic costs of food waste are reckoned to total around € 705 bn globally. There are also significant hidden environmental and social costs. Meanwhile, the EU imports around 77 percent of its food and feed protein requirements, leaving it economically vulnerable and dependent on unsustainable and expensive animal protein. RuBisCO protein is found in all green vegetables and plants and represents around 50 percent of the total protein content of green leaves.

GreenProtein is an industrial demonstration project that aims to produce high-added value, food grade proteins and other ingredients from vegetal food waste streams. The primary objective will be to extract and purify food-grade, fully functioning, RuBisCO protein isolate on an industrial scale using discards from the vegetal processing industry.

GreenProtein project aims to process 1500 kg/h of green residue raw material into 28 kg of RuBisCo protein powder per hour. The protein has many valuable food industry applications based on functionalities like gelling, foaming and emulsifying, with excellent market projection in growing markets like high protein, vegan and halal foodstuff.

  • Construct a DEMO plant and fine-tune the biorefinery process in order to boost the industrial profits of vegetable agri-food industries, while contributing to decrease waste in Europe and increase protein availability
  • Demonstration of a complete new value chain leading to higher added value products for new markets
  • Improvement of environmental performance and cost efficiency of resulting products as compared to state of the art benchmarks
  • Demonstration of an integrated process with more than 40% of the raw material to be valorised into high added value additives
  • Demonstration of products with a 2-5 times higher value than the current applications of the raw material, leading to a significantly higher total valorisation of the agricultural crops so contributing to rural development and employment in rural areas

Consortium map

Project coordination

  • KONINKLIJKE COOPERATIE COSUN UA Breda, Netherlands

Consortium

  • GREENPROTEIN BV WAGENINGEN, Netherlands
  • BIONET SERVICIOS TECNICOS SL Fuente Alamo De Murcia, Spain
  • INSTITUT NATIONAL D'ENSEIGNEMENT SUPERIEUR POUR L'AGRICULTURE, L'ALIMENTATION ET L'ENVIRONNEMENT Paris, France
  • INSTITUT NATIONAL DES SCIENCES ET INDUSTRIES DU VIVANT ET DE L'ENVIRONNEMENT - AGROPARISTECH Palaiseau, France
  • RUITENBERG INGREDIENTS B.V. Twello, Netherlands
  • EURIZON SL Madrid, Spain
  • INSTITUT NATIONAL DE RECHERCHE POUR L'AGRICULTURE, L'ALIMENTATION ET L'ENVIRONNEMENT Paris, France
  • POSLOVNI I PRAVNI FAKULTET MLADENOVAC BEOGRAD, Serbia
  • STICHTING WAGENINGEN RESEARCH Wageningen, Netherlands
Former member
  • NEDERLANDSE ORGANISATIE VOOR TOEGEPAST NATUURWETENSCHAPPELIJK ONDERZOEK TNO Den Haag, Netherlands
  • PROVALOR BV Ursem, Netherlands
  • PAZMANY PETER KATOLIKUS EGYETEM Budapest, Hungary
  • FLORETTE FRANCE GMS LESSAY, France