Technology to turn waste from rapeseed oil production into valuable food protein.
The continuing growth of world population is pushing demand for food. Climate changes and limited resources for farming lead to increased interest in new sources of nutrients alternative to meat. Additionally, human diet undergoes a significant shift towards proteins. Therefore, the growth of plant protein market is predicted to be drastically driven up in the coming years. Oilseeds, known for their high content of nutritious proteins, are expected to take center stage as main source of plant proteins aimed for human consumption. Nowadays, the main product of rapeseed processing is oil. A by-product – rapeseed cake – is used as animal feed. There is no commercial technology capable of extracting fully functional protein from rapeseed cake. At NapiFeryn BioTech (NFB) we came up with a new technology which allows more efficient use of this by-product. Our technology is protected with three patent applications. It enables full recovery of high-quality rapeseed cake proteins, ready to be used in food industry. Our business model is based on licensing of the technology to rapeseed processors. Licensing fee will be calculated individually for each oilseed processor or integrated formulator, based on the annual scale of the processed rapeseed. We have validated the pricing strategy with rapeseed processors. The first license agreement has been signed already in 2016. In the Ph2 project we aim primarily at delivering full-scale demonstrator (TRL9) of the rapeseed protein isolation technology at the commercial level (market launch), collect and prove all the data needed to quantify the cost-effectiveness of our technology. These activities will provide the input required for the main deliverables of the project: The Basic Engineering Level design of Biorefinery. With our technology the value that could be derived from the same amount of crop will double, from EUR 450 to EUR 900 per ton, which might be the only way for rapeseed processors to stay in business.