Promoters of high-protein, disease-resistant lupin beans take aim at the expanding plant-based protein market
As plant-based proteins gain in popularity, a disease-resistant crop that delivers more protein than peas and better disease resistance than other pulses is getting a big push through a combination of funders and partners to take it from the farm to the consumer.
Lupin beans are relatively new to Canada, said Devan Lewis, but they are grown in Chile and South Korea for food and Europe chiefly for animal feed.
“It’s definitely an interesting crop,” he said. “The ultimate goal is a protein replacement, and it’s really good because it has a higher protein content than, say, a pea would, but the starch levels are a lot less.”
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Lewis is a project manager with Calgary-based AgCall, which has been contracted to do the agronomic research and testing with Lupin Platform Inc. Together with Hensall Co-op (Ontario), Lumi Foods (B.C.) and Puris Foods (Minnesota), they form a partnership that was recently awarded $7.3 million in funding through Protein Industries Canada.
The funding is intended to build an “integrated ecosystem,” which means the partners plan to provide a path for the new crop all the way from crop production and seed handling and cleaning to developing and manufacturing ingredients and products.
While lupin beans can be and are eaten whole, the end-use partners in the development team are more interested in flours and protein extracts.
“In a lot of the vegetarian and vegan food markets, those products, they’re looking to target some lupin replacement in there with higher protein content,” Lewis said. “So it’s more used for the protein than it would be for the whole lupin seed itself.”
The first step is to get some lupin seed, and that means variety development. The team is working on several varieties with a view to finding ones that fit into the Canadian growing season. Two in particular, one from Germany and one from the United Kingdom, show promise.
“We’re working with Lupin Platform to find some good varieties that will grow in our climate in Canada and in Western Canada,” Lewis said.
They are also working to test and gather data on inoculants and crop protection products to obtain the appropriate Canadian registrations so that the crop is ready for farmers’ fields.
Lewis said lupins have a yield comparable to peas but with significantly higher protein content — 35 to 40 percent compared to 25 percent for peas.
A key selling point of lupin beans is their resistance to diseases that infect other crops such as peas, lentils, dry beans and alfalfa. This would allow farmers faced with disease pressure to swap in lupins as an alternative nitrogen-fixing pulse in their regular rotations.
“It would be a little easier in the rotation and maybe a little less demanding than the pea crop would be,” Lewis said.
“Some of the diseases that seem to be sneaking into those crops, lupin wouldn’t be affected by them.”
Like many other crops last year, the lupin beans in test plots both in central Alberta and in Manitoba suffered from the lack of rain. They are not particularly drought tolerant, so if they find a home in Western Canada, it will be in those regions that are more apt to get adequate moisture.
The lupin development team has been working with seed growers with “just a few hundred acres” grown commercially in Manitoba. However, momentum is building.
“By 2023, there will definitely be more opportunity for more commercial stuff going on,” Lewis said. “So not too far out in the future.”
