Industry & Market

It is estimated that more than 1.1 million tonnes of vegetable proteins are consumed in Europe each year (Frost & Sullivan). Whilst some of this is used in animal feeds and pet foods, a significant amount is used for human nutrition.

Applications

About soy

The soya bean is well known as being an important source of vegetable oil (about 18% of the bean’s composition). It also has a high protein content (about 38%), and this protein is of excellent nutritional quality containing all the essential amino acids necessary for human growth and development. 

Pea protein

Mainly made from peas produced in Europe and North America, pea protein is extracted from yellow pea (Pisum sativum) which represents a sustainable protein source and an alternative to the consumption of meat for the coming years.

Other plant-based proteins

Pea, faba bean, chickpea, lentil, lupin, rice, potato and wheat: these plant species can provide food ingredients that are high in protein. Wheat and soy protein are traditionally the main types in the plant-based protein market. However, this innovative and dynamic market is growing and is increasingly attracting diversified sources of plant-based proteins.

Measuring protein quantity

EUVEPRO is concerned about proposals to move away from using the widely accepted nitrogen to protein conversion factor (PCF) of N x 6.25 factor for soya protein determination, and instead, to replace this with the factor N x 5.71.

The change to a PCF of 5.71 would have a significant negative impact on the perception of soya as a nutritious and high-quality protein, it results in an almost 10% reduction in the calculated protein content of soya products without any change in the composition of the product. 

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)

Soya bean production in the EU is limited due to agronomic and climatic reasons and operators must therefore rely very heavily on imports to cover industry needs.

Imports are critically important therefore for the vegetable protein sector and remain under constant threat due to potentially very low level presence of asynchronous and obsolete GMO events. The risk of finding trace amounts of these GMOs in imported products has been of increasing concern in recent years due to a variety of factors including the increasing area and number of GMOs cultivated around the world and the difference in the speed of GM authorizations between the EU and the originating countries.