Leaft Foods<\/a>, a start-up focused on harvesting the world\u2019s most abundant protein, rubisco, from the leaves of forage crops, like lucerne.<\/p>\nThe couple live on a farm in Canterbury, where they\u2019re committed to finding more diverse and sustainable uses for the land \u2013 wanting to create something that would \u201ctruly make a difference\u201d to the future of food, Leyland-Penno says.<\/p>\n
After years of research, they finally cracked the code \u2013 successfully extracting rubisco, the protein that drives photosynthesis in every green leaf, at a commercial scale. \u201cMany have tried to extract rubisco protein in the past, but nobody has got this far,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
A discovery to emerge from that work is Leaft Blade \u2013 a performance fuel shot combining the rubisco protein with other macronutrients in a liquid form that\u2019s rapidly digested.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s been little research into protein metabolisation and benefits for women so it\u2019s a space we\u2019re keen to lean into,\u201d Leyland-Penno says.<\/p>\n
Giving athletes a performance edge wasn\u2019t the Pennos\u2019 starting point.<\/p>\n
\u201cNew Zealand needs a future beyond dairy, a future where we have high-value exports, because we\u2019re a country totally dependent on them, and we need to lighten our environmental footprint,\u201d Leyland-Penno says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was through that journey we came across the concept of extracting rubisco, the most abundant protein on earth. We knew New Zealand grows green leaf crops like pasture better than anybody else. We\u2019ve got the beautiful soils, the rainfall, the climate and innovative farmers to make it work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lucerne \u2013 known in other parts of the world as alfalfa \u2013 is the oldest domesticated forage crop and one of the most productive. \u201cIt\u2019s perennial, deep-rooted so it\u2019s drought tolerant, and it fixes its own nitrogen. So the environmental footprint of producing the rubisco protein is far lower than from meat or dairy,\u201d Leyland-Penno says.<\/p>\n
![\"]()
Leaft co-founders Maury Leyland-Penno and John Penno.<\/p>\n
Leaft\u2019s lucerne farmers in Southbridge \u2013 where All Black Dan Carter has his roots \u2013 produce 2.5 times more protein per hectare than a Canterbury dairy farm, with 94% fewer emissions, and 97% less water use.<\/p>\n
The first protein that Leaft produced was a rubisco protein isolate, which can replace whole egg in baking and is used to make creamy yoghurt and foamy coffee. It\u2019s now exported to Japan.<\/p>\n
As Leaft\u2019s team of scientists and engineers learned more about the protein, they developed a product to trial with athletes for performance and recovery.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t necessarily know where Leaft Blade sat, but it\u2019s clear that high-performing female athletes is where it fits best,\u201d says Leaft Food\u2019s head of go-to-market, Nathan Sheppard, who\u2019s also an adventure racer and ultramarathon runner.<\/p>\n
About six months ago, the company tried Leaft Blade with a woman who wasn\u2019t an elite athlete, who struggled with low iron levels. \u201cAfter taking the product, her levels increased by 48%,\u201d he says. \u201cIt made us think there\u2019s something more in this. So that\u2019s been exciting wrapping our heads around it \u2013 we now have elite female athletes starting to notice the difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among them is Sheppard\u2019s sister, professional cyclist Samara Sheppard, who represented New Zealand at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, finishing ninth in the women\u2019s cross country mountain bike race.<\/p>\n
![\"]()
Kiwi mountain biker Samara Sheppard.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, she broke her hand racing in the Lifetime Grand Prix offroad series in the US and started taking Leaft Blade to see if it could aid her recovery.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been lucky to have access to it, put it through its paces, and recognise the benefits,\u201d says Sheppard, who takes care of bike projects for Destination Wollongong in Sydney when she\u2019s not racing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was getting extra protein on a daily basis and the rubisco was super digestible. But the biggest benefit I\u2019ve noticed has been with my menstrual cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n
While training at 2200m altitude in Mexico for seven weeks, the cyclist saw the change. \u201cIn an endurance sport, we try to monitor our cycles in terms of energy, making sure we don\u2019t go into the red. And this was the first time I\u2019d done an altitude stint for that long and kept a regular menstrual cycle,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t change anything in my training, but I\u2019d been taking the Leaft Blade every day. It must\u2019ve been a combination of the macronutrients and the iron, and I felt better for it. I first saw it as a protein supplement to keep your muscles strong and help them repair from training \u2013 so to have that extra outcome was really cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sheppard, who\u2019s training towards the Oceania Gravel Championship and the UCI Mountain Bike Marathon World Champs next year, takes frozen pouches of the product on training rides \u2013 each with 18g of protein \u2013 and notices a \u201cbrain lift\u201d from it as well.<\/p>\n
Olympic kayaker Lucy Matehaere started taking Leaft Blade after the Paris Olympic Games, struggling to get enough protein to fuel her intense training.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to eat quite a lot of protein each day and it can be tricky to get it at the right times \u2013 I don\u2019t want to eat a chicken breast before going for a hard session in the morning,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve noticed having a Leaft protein hit in the morning has helped my energy across the day.\u201d<\/p>\n
As well as training for next year\u2019s world championships in Poland, Matehaere is completing her postgraduate degree in biomedical science. Her metabolism studies give her an insight into how rubisco works.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really cool to have that background understanding, but also the curiosity to experiment with this,\u201d she says. \u201cNutrition is one of the key factors that drives performance \u2013 the more consistent your training, the better your improvements over time. So being able to fuel well day on day, week on week, is crucial for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Male and female athletes in New Zealand and the US are now using the product. \u201cSwimmers, runners, surfers, fighters, wrestlers and snowboarders,\u201d Nathan Sheppard says. \u201cA big motivation for us is interacting with these amazing athletes, knowing they\u2019re genuinely benefiting from it, and it\u2019s supporting their professional careers.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Leyland-Penno, the \u201clong, deep dive\u201d into nutrition has been hugely satisfying.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was an engineer on the design team who did a whole lot of sailing, rather than being a professional athlete myself, but my journey since then through food and nutrition has become really important to me,\u201d she says. \u201cWomen don\u2019t have to be athletes to benefit from this, either. I\u2019m menopausal, so there\u2019s never been a better time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although she recently took up wing foiling, Leyland-Penno is more at home on a farm bike or tractor these days. But the change to the America\u2019s Cup rules for 2027, where every crew must include a woman, has been heartening.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese women haven\u2019t had the same opportunities or experience, so how else do you bridge this divide?\u201d she says. \u201cI feel inspired by the women who are doing it \u2013 Jo Aleh is an incredible athlete. I love seeing it. It\u2019s brought back new interest to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
This story was originally published at Newsroom.co.nz<\/a> and is republished with permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Leyland-Penno arrived in San Diego, she\u2019d just turned 24 and there were only three other women working…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[28174,16669,33737,31100,10542,9787,2678,14719,14721,111,139,69,213,14720,61],"class_list":["post-217572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-americas","tag-athletes","tag-breakthrough","tag-champions","tag-cup","tag-female","tag-fuel","tag-lockerroom","tag-mcfadden","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports","tag-suzanne","tag-to"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}