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The chickpea protein revolution – a novel plant-based food ingredient

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CHICKPRO70 (The chickpea protein revolution – a novel plant-based food ingredient)

Período documentado: 2018-06-01 hasta 2018-11-30

"The chickpea protein provides the food industry with a unique protein source which can be easily integrated in food products, reduces or removes the need for various emulsifiers and other artificial ingredients and is environmental friendly. This makes the chickpea protein an alternative for artificial emulsifiers and alternatives for the heavily used soy protein which, amongst others, is a GMO crop. InnovoPro's CHICKPRO70 can also compete with pea protein which is becoming more popular but has drawbacks which make the integration into food more difficult.

InnovoPro has developed a new protocol enabling the commercialisation of chickpea protein as a new food ingredient. We expect this product to take a relevant share of the growing plant-based protein market which is expected to reach a market size of $7.14B by 2021.

We expect the commercialisation phase of the InnovoPro chickpea protein to start in 2019, when CHICKPRO70 will be implemented into customers' recipes as a premium ingredient. We have the attention of leading European as well as global food producers, several of which are currently testing our samples and developing prototypes of food products with “InnovoPro inside"".

Our operational and R&D team is highly experienced, as well as our board of directors and the network of external advisors, and our aim for this SME Phase 1 project was to further organize the work with our existing test-clients, to develop a detailed scale-up plan, to professionalize our market research, to lead identification and, last but not least, to organise our financial and business planning to support our expected market entrance and growth from 2018 through 2023.


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The main objectives of the specific CHICKPRO70 Phase I project were:
1) Building strategic JV partnerships which will support further development of the protein
extraction;
2) Preparations for semi-commercial production;
3) Identifying and selecting the first potential clients; and
4) Obtaining a business plan to support our commercialisation path.

The main project tasks that were performed to reach these objectives were:
1) Prepare pilots with 1-3 strategic JV partners (food producers, distributors or research institutes). Finalise negotiations towards strategic product development partnerships for the launching of new food products with InnovoPro's chickpea inside.
2) Finalising the production scale-up plan in order to prepare for semi-commercial production.
3) Detailed analysis of the European market and identification of potential clients and partners. The goal was to create a business development process started with 5-10 selected additional targets in the EU
4) Detailed business and financial plan to underpin Innovopro's development in the coming 3 to 5 years.
"Through the four tasks of this SME Phase 1 project, we have worked to further define the scope and variety of applications, where the CHICKPRO70 technology and products offer a convincing commercial feasibility/opportunity. The main areas we have focused on are:

• Which strategic clients / partners can we practically cooperate with to commercialize our product asap?
• Which companies could we work with beyond those first ""early adopters"" who can support our growth?
• How can we scale up our production?
• How shall we structure our business and financials moving forward?

The years 2019 and 2020 will be pivotal for InnovoPro. The intensive R&D efforts over the past year are leading to the first products which are about the hit the market. The massive business development is expected to lead to the first substantial revenues and our production will be scaled-up to satisfy the demand. More strategic partners will be brought into the fold and our distributors will become active with a series of clients around Europe.

This growth will be tightly managed both from a financial and a team point of view. In addition, we continue to realize that our core is R&D and our patent/IP strategy will remain a key focus to secure not only our current first markets but also develop a sustainable competitive position for years to come.

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