Developing a new plant-based protein

We all need protein to live and stay healthy. However, many protein sources are becoming an increasingly expensive way to meet our needs – both economically and environmentally. Innovators are looking for new food products that can help change the food production system to help solve environmental impacts created by our existing food production systems.

Protein-based food

Protein is one of three macronutrients humans need for maintaining body functions and carrying out the activities of daily life. Developing new sustainable protein sources is vital to feed the growing world population, while reducing food production impacts on the environment.

Developing new protein sources

Leaft Food founders John Penno and Maury Leyland Penno could see the growing global demand from consumers for food with low environmental impacts. Coming from a dairy farming background, they also wanted to find ways to help farmers to shrink their environmental impact. Plant-based protein alternatives have been a growing market globally but there are limited alternatives to animal protein in New Zealand.

The innovative couple became interested in ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (rubisco). Rubisco is a protein in green leaves that plays a role in photosynthesis. Spinach, kale and alfalfa sprouts are all examples of leafy greens with rubisco.

Herbivores are adapted to get this protein from plants, but humans don’t have the digestive system to fully access the protein and would need to consume impossible amounts of plant matter to extract it in any useful quantity.

Leaft Foods was set up to commercialise the extraction of rubisco from leafy greens and to create a high-value protein product with a lighter environmental footprint than either animal or grain-based proteins.

Leaft’s rubisco powder

The team at Leaft Foods have developed a method to extract rubisco from crops (primarily lucerne) to produce a protein powder product. The protein is extracted from the leaves of the crop. As a result of the extraction technology, they have also developed a co-product – a protein-optimised animal feed similar to chopped silage.

The powder is neutral tasting, soluble and highly digestible, contains no known allergens and is a complete protein with an amino acid profile like beef but with a lower carbon footprint.

The plant protein powder is a versatile food ingredient that can be blended into a range of formulations. Leaft has conducted various trials to understand how the powder can be used in food products.

An early proof of concept was – appropriately for a New Zealand company – an eggless pavlova.

Whether you bake it, put it in a drink or a dessert, it performs as well as or, in some cases, better than dairy.

Ross Milne, Leaft CEO

Food manufacturing

The excitement over the performance of the plant protein powder has changed the approach at Leaft. From an initial idea to onsell it as a high-value product to food manufacturers, Leaft is now working to undertake food manufacture for the company and growers to benefit from the product.

In 2022, Leaft set up a small commercial-grade facility based at FoodSouth to grow its manufacturing capabilities. This work includes scaling up the extraction of the protein and further research into the development of different food products.

Leaft was boosted by significant investment from a number of players, including Ngāi Tahu Holdings, NBA talent Steven Adams, ACC (via the Climate Change Impact Fund) and US-based Khosla Ventures (also an early investor in Rocket Lab). The investment has aided the scale-up to extract the protein, expand research and development into food products and grow manufacturing capacity ahead of a market launch.

As well as the protein powder and food product development, Leaft has begun to identify international pathways for marketing the powder and done further work to quantify the modelling, which is important for farmers to have confidence in the system.

Working with farm systems

The Leaft team are growing the lucerne crops and working through how the crop and its silage co-product fit into an existing farm system as well as the functional impacts of the feed on animal production.

They see significant potential benefits that could produce real opportunities for farmers. From an environmental viewpoint, farmers could choose to grow a lucerne crop on vulnerable land (for example, near a water body) as it is not grazed but only harvested.

The modelling suggests that producing rubisco protein directly from leafy crops has a carbon footprint 17 times lower per hectare than conventional dairy protein from dairy farming. It also suggests that the protein-optimised animal feed/silage co-product will reduce nitrogen in waterways and release of nitrous oxide into the atmosphere.

The Leaft system provides farmers with an alternative income stream from land they presently use to graze animals. This means farmers can reduce stock without loss of income, which is the main driver behind the system’s lower greenhouse gas footprint claim.