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This project aims at a major innovation in the fields of protein production and the reduction of food residues by producing functional proteins of food quality and other ingredients to high added value from the remnants of vegetable processing.

The overall goal is to design a demonstration plant for the extraction and purification of the isolated RuBisCo functional protein and to demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of the revalorisation of green residues from existing agroindustry.

INRA will provide a scientific support to the project. In particular, the ISD  and ELIPS  teams are involved at different levels in this project: they will work on characterizing the biochemical composition of raw materials and the functional properties of the protein isolate.

• Initially, the teams will characterize the composition (proteins, polyphenols, fibers, etc.) of the salad waste that will constitute the raw material of the project.
• In a second step, in collaboration with WUR, they will evaluate the impact of laboratory scale extraction parameters on the functional properties of the extracted proteins.
• Subsequently, the composition and functional properties of the protein isolates produced with the pilot plant will be characterized.
• Finally, the behavior of protein isolates will be studied in model foods.

Duration of the project : 4.5 years (September 2016-February 2021)

Overall budget : 5.5M€

Consortium:

The GreenProtein project gathers 7 partners, both industrial and academic, from 4 different countries: Royal Cosun (NL), who is also project coordinator, Ruitenberg Ingredients (NL), INRA (FR), Bionet (ES), Innovarum (ES), the Faculty of Business Studies and Law of the University Union Nikola Tesla - FPSP (RS) and Wageningen University & Research - WUR (NL).

“This project has received funding from the Bio Based Industries Joint Undertaking under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 720728”