Co-founder Maury Leyland Penno said it would be sending its \u201chero product\u201d, the Rubisco protein isolate, to Japan, as it could be used as a plant-based alternative to emulsifiers like egg whites or gelling agents in food manufacturing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe concept of extracting Rubisco protein from leafy forage crops is one that\u2019s been known for a very long time to have a lot of potential,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Rubisco] is a very highly concentrated protein that performs extremely well in bakeries. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo if I was to offer you a muffin or a cake and I replaced the egg with Rubisco protein isolate, you wouldn\u2019t know the difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the new deal with the \u201chighly sophisticated\u201d market of Japan marked an exciting time for the business.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really exciting partnerships for us,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis partnership opens the door to us having really quite a significant volume over the next few years of our production, so we\u2019re talking many tonnes into that market over the coming years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve been connecting us with their customers, and we\u2019ve been working with our protein with them and with their customers to show what it can do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Penno said its Rubisco protein had an amino acids profile that was even greater than for whey protein.<\/p>\n
Leaft Foods was founded in 2019 by former dairy executives John Penno, Synlait’s co-founder and ex-chief executive, and Maury Leyland Penno, formerly of Fonterra.<\/p>\n
She said protein was only a small part of what was inside the leaf.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we have other streams, we\u2019ve got a zero-waste process that comes from that link, and a significant amount of that goes back into the dairy farming system.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd when it goes back into the dairy farming system, our major product is a protein-optimised silage. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s actually better for dairy cows they but they produce more milk and they have lower nitrous emissions.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said being zero-waste was very important to the company when compared to other alternative protein value chains.<\/p>\n
Maury Leyland Penno says being zero waste is important to Leaft.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s something that has been a real struggle in some of the more alternative proteins, where you have a very small part of the stream which ends up as the product, and then a real question mark over what to do with everything else.\u201d<\/p>\n
Furthermore, it targeted high-performance athletes with its Leaft Blade product that came in ready-to-drink, 100-millilitre \u201cperformance fuel\u201d sachets featuring Rubisco.<\/p>\n
Penno said they launched the company to find more environmentally-friendly options for food production in New Zealand, which were also good options for farmers.<\/p>\n
Nudging elbows with the dairy and meat sectors, she said there was plenty of room in the booming proteins market for more options.<\/p>\n
John Penno and Maury Leyland Penno, founders of Leaft.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think overall for New Zealand, this integrates really well in terms of providing new opportunities for farming that allow us to look forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lacto Japan\u2019s Oceania general manager, Takeshi Shimizu, said it was not every day that it discovered such an exciting new protein.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat impressed us most was not only the protein system itself, but the fact that we have been able to work with it in a range of promising applications from the start.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe quality, texture and flavour of the foods produced meet the exceptionally high standards that Japanese consumers expect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lacto Japan company files showed it was expanding its plant-based food ingredients to accommodate veganism and dairy allergies, which also contributed to nutrition and health, due to high demand from Japanese food manufacturers.<\/p>\n
In 2021, Leaft Foods received $10.3 million from the Ministry for Primary Industries\u2019 Sustainable Food and Fibre Foods Fund – matched by $15.5m in co-investment – towards a five-year project to develop the new leaf protein concentrate from crops and its technology and intellectual property.<\/p>\n
– RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Co-founder Maury Leyland Penno said it would be sending its \u201chero product\u201d, the Rubisco protein isolate, to Japan,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[6213,138,3468,564,13313,2518,28205,117,111,139,69,28203,2859,28204,28206,102],"class_list":["post-28619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-asian","tag-business","tag-deal","tag-food","tag-giant","tag-green","tag-monique","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-producer","tag-protein","tag-sprouts","tag-steele","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28619","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=28619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}