A $31-million investment is being made towards, what Protein Industries Canada calls, supporting the “commercialization of high-protein canola seed, as well as sunflower meal.”
The organization is investing $13.4-million and the remainder covered by a group of companies involved – Corteva Agriscience, Botaneco, Bunge, Rainfed Foods, and Northeast Nutrition Inc.
The investment will help increase demand and market opportunities for these products that will eventually be used in the aquaculture, feed and food sectors as well as” improve sunflower protein characteristics for a wide range of plant-based food applications” according to Protein Industries Canada in a news release.
CEO of Protein Industries Canada Bill Greuel says it’s the second step of the process that began about four years ago with the first round of funding towards some of the “foundational breeding work and genomics work to produce high-protein canola.”
“Plant breeding is a long-term game when companies are looking at introducing new traits — high-protein canola being one of them — into the marketplace, that’s a 10-year time horizon because plant breeding is relatively slow,” Greuel said. “This is exactly that — taking the work that we’ve funded and supported in the first fund then making sure that it’s reaching its full, commercial potential…over the course of the next five years that we’ll be funding this project.”
The latest investment will aid Corteva to transition to the second part of its project of making its high-protein canola meal available for non-ruminant livestock, including farmed aquaculture fish. “Corteva and Botaneco are the project’s leading collaborators and will work with Bunge and Northeast Nutrition to introduce and test canola meal in end-use feed rations” reads the news release. “Bunge will partner with Corteva to produce high-protein canola meal for feeding studies and consumer sampling, building commercial acceptance and increasing the nutritional value in end-use products.”
It goes on to say, “Northeast Nutrition will test Botaneco’s Alofin canola protein in their aquafeed formulations, while Rainfed Foods will incorporate Botaneco’s Purezome sunflower oilbodies and protein isolates in their millet-based alternative milk products to enhance nutrition.”
Greuel says it’s all part of a goal to create a $25-billion industry by the year 2035.
