The increase in per capita consumption of meat in developing countries and a new trend of food consumption of consumers in developed countries to reduce the consumption of animal products and to intensify the use of healthy bio plant products for the nutrition has led to a dramatic increase in the demand for vegetable proteins and chronic problems in the global supply.
Vegetarians and vegans may need to eat 10–20% more protein than recommended in order to compensate for the lower digestibility of plant-based protein. Soybean remains the major source of vegetable protein, but its supply is unbalanced: Argentina, Brazil and the USA account for more than 80 percent of global production, while China remains a massive consumer and imports from these three countries. Europe, because it inherited GATT policies, does not currently produce enough vegetal protein to meet its needs for animal production and vegetarian protein demands. This formation makes the market for vegetal proteins to become a major market in the agribusiness industry. Especially in Europe, the consumption of vegetal proteins for the direct use in vegetarian food products is increasing.
Even though there are few offers of Protein-Extrudates on the market (protein muesli “Seitenbacher”, flakes containing soy products, different crispies for the food industry, convenience products in the refrigerated displays of supermarkets being in most cases vegetarian and from wheat or egg-protein), after passing sensory studies and compositional analysis, they don’t show good nor acceptable results from a consumer point of view. The retail looks urgently for alternatives.
With the “free of allergens” positioning, our protein products contrast particularly compared with soy products, wheat protein-products or egg-protein. However, these IGV products are not suited for generally substitute nor for totally excluding soy products, neither from the price nor from the positioning point of view for the customer. Goal is to position independent products for a new product-segment, having a clear message. They also correspond to a certain mainstream – a lifestyle positioning. Extracts from microalgae find a broader application range to be used as ingredients applied in food formulations. The proteins and special amino acid ratios obtained from algae still have a future potential which remained up to now partially disregarded, but IGV complemented its pea-based protein ingredients with tailored amino acid fractions from microalgae, offering thus a complete protein product for different consumer groups.
