Goal:
The project aims to establish the foundation for developing high-quality, plant-based food products.
A transition to more plant-based diets will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and benefit the environment. To achieve this, Danish agriculture has the opportunity to upscale production of oat, peas and faba beans relatively quickly. The challenge is that plant-based foods made from these crops do not currently meet the necessary quality requirements. For this reason, there is a need to develop high-quality cultivars.
Plan:
The project will run for two years and is the first phase in a three-phase project.
Relevant cultivars of oat, pea and faba bean will be selected and grown. The nutritional, functional and sensory qualities of the derived raw materials and ingredients will then be analysed.
The objective is that farmers will be able to grow the most suitable cultivars to meet the demands of plant-based food manufacturers and consumers in the growing market for plant-based foods.
The project will conduct a lifecycle assessment pilot study to measure impacts on climate and environment and determine the most important quality parameters for improvement in the next phases of the project.
The project will also develop a library of faba bean variants for rapid reference during the project’s third phase.
Expected results:
The combined AQRIFood project (phase 1-3) will improve the quality and efficiency of plant-based food production, giving Denmark a competitive advantage on the global market.
High-quality and efficiently produced plant-based foods could replace from 325,000 to 515,000 tons of global meat consumption by 2030, corresponding to a reduction in greenhouse emissions totalling 5.4 million to 12.6 million tons of CO2-equivalents.
More information is available from the AQRIFood project website.
