InnoProtein - New sustainable proteins for food, feed and non-food bio-based applications

By 2050, with the global population expected to reach 10 billion, producing sustainable, high-quality protein becomes a pressing environmental, economic, and social challenge. The EU's "protein gap," importing 70 % of protein-rich crops and 90 % of soybeans, adds urgency to the quest for new, nutritious, and eco-friendly protein sources grown in the EU that cater to diverse markets.

The primary goal of the InnoProtein project is to develop and introduce new, sustainable protein sources with exceptional nutritional quality, health benefits, and functional properties. These proteins are aimed at meeting the diverse needs and expectations of consumers, animals and industries, serving not only the food and feed markets but also finding applications in non-food biobased industries.

To achieve this objective, InnoProtein will:

• Use emerging technologies being explored for proteins and peptide extraction
• Exploit new protein sources such as:
  • Species of microalgae
  • Bacteria that have not yet efficiently been brought to large-scale production
  • Fungal - already known species that have never before been used as a protein source. Some of these species are so novel that they need to be approved for human consumption.
  • Adopt a CIRCULAR & ZERO-WASTE strategy. Full valorization of residual biomass and streams from Single Cell Protein (SCP) and protein production processes will be carried out to produce bioplastics and biostimulants

The InnoProtein project has taken a collaborative and inclusive approach, bringing together a strong consortium of 13 partners, including technology providers, industrial partners, and consumer-oriented organizations from nine different European countries. This multi-actor approach ensures a comprehensive perspective and a holistic strategy to achieve the project's objectives.

EUFIC is the leading partner for the communication and dissemination activities and is also leading and contributing to tasks on identifying social requirements for a sustainable protein value chain and consumer acceptance of alternative proteins.

Kick-off meeting in Miñano, Spain (2023)

The Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking and its members support the project.

Funded by the European Union. However, the views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or CBE JU. Neither the European Union nor the CBE JU can be held responsible for them.

From the beginning of the projects, EUFIC is taking care of increasing the outreach and impact of project’s outcomes by communicating and disseminating them among relevant stakeholders in particular industry and consumers. Moreover, EUFIC is defining the nutritional requirement and assessing the willinness of consumer to adopt novel food. Since the project started in June 2023 EUFIC has:

• Developed a brand identity, project templates and communication material (e.g., first press release, poster template for participation to relevant event, social media posts) to be used for communicating about the project and related activities to different audiences.
• Regular updated newsletters presenting the news, event and outputs of the project.
• Held a webinar, in collaboration with the Sylplant project, on alternative protein and novel food production
• Created the Protein Pioneers cluster.
• A public report on the sustainable requirement indicating nutritional requirement for different type of people (pregnant wome, children, elderly) and market requirement.
• Developed a series of infographic for each one of the protein streams.
• A blog article serie to explain what is the work behind the growth and extraction of proteins from alternative sources.

In the next year EUFIC will:

• Organize a final conference
• Continue to publish new findings from the research through articles and scientific publications

Giacomo Sini, Manager – giacomo.sini@eufic.org

Social Media: #InnoProteinEU