Canadian pulses are increasingly being processed into food ingredients at home, say industry officials.
“We estimate that the capacity is about 600,000 tonnes,” said Julianne Curran, vice-president of market innovation with Pulse Canada.
When she started working for the association in 2005 there were three processors making ingredients from pulses. Today there are 25.
“We’ve seen a lot of growth in the last five years,” she said.
Bill Greuel, chief executive officer of Protein Industries Canada, said the Pulse Canada estimate sounds about right.
Read Also
Dry bean seeded acreage in Manitoba hits 20-year high
Dry bean acreage across all types reached around 207,000 acres in 2025, representing a significant increase from last year’s 182,000 acres.
His organization commissioned a report by Ernst and Young that pegged pulse ingredient manufacturing capacity at 510,000 tonnes in 2020 and there have been additions since.
“I think 600,000 tonnes is a reasonable estimate,” he said.
It is almost all pea processing capacity.
“There isn’t much for lentils and chickpeas. There are some companies playing around with fababeans but it would be rounding errors,” said Greuel.
All the new processing capacity makes Canada the second biggest market for Canadian peas behind only China.
That domestic market is expected to continue to expand in the coming years.
Ernst and Young estimates the global market for plant-based food ingredients will be 40 million tonnes by 2035.
“A significant portion of that is going to come from peas just because of the functionality and the nutritional composition and all that stuff,” said Greuel.
He estimated global demand for pea ingredients could be seven to 10 million tonnes by 2035 and Canada should be the world leader in meeting that demand.
“There’s lots of upside opportunity for us in Canada,” he said.
Protein Industries Canada has set a target of $25 billion in sales of Canadian plant-based foods and ingredients by 2035, up from an estimated $2.5 billion today.
That would require five million tonnes of ingredient processing capacity. That total is for all crops but peas would lead the way.
Greuel acknowledged that is a very ambitious goal. But even if it ends up at only half that amount, that will still require billions of dollars of capital investment.
And that investment continues to unfold at a rapid pace.
For instance, PIP International opened its yellow pea wet fractionation pilot plant in Lethbridge on May 30.
That will be followed by construction on a $150 million yellow pea protein facility that can process 126,000 tonnes of the crop annually, which is scheduled for late 2022 in that city.
Phyto Organix announced on May 25 that it is building a $225 million fractionation plant in Strathmore, Alta., capable of processing 40,000 tonnes of yellow peas annually.
Curran said all the activity stems from growing consumer demand for more nutritious and sustainable food. There is mounting interest in pulse protein and fibre in particular.
However, some of the initial plant-based food craze has died down, at least for alternative meat products.
According to the Good Food Institute, sales in that segment have cooled tremendously. There was zero growth in the United States market in 2021 compared to a 46 percent increase in 2020.
Curran isn’t concerned about slumping sales in the plant-based meat sector.
“These categories were an opportunity for us to introduce pulse ingredients to the food manufacturing industry and to really establish some capacity here,” she said.
“There are many other food product categories that these ingredients can be used in.”
For instance, there is tremendous potential to incorporate pulse ingredients in pastas, breads, cereals and crackers.
“We’ve been putting a lot of pressure on plants to behave like animal-based foods and there’s just more opportunity to let them be plants,” she said.
Greuel agreed the baking industry has potential for growth. Food manufacturers are also experimenting with incorporating pulses in dairy, egg, chicken and seafood replacement products.
Pulse Canada has set a goal of having 25 percent or about two million tonnes of annual pulse production directed to non-traditional markets and value-added processing by 2025.
The 25 food ingredient companies with their 600,000 tonnes of annual processing capacity are “moving the needle” in that direction, she said.
There are some challenges, however. For instance, there needs to be more work on finding value-added markets for lentils.
Another hurdle is that the primary product from the fractionation process is starch.
“Right now, there is pretty low utilization of pea starch, especially in higher value applications,” said Curran.
Greuel said Canada needs to ensure that it has a competitive business environment to attract this type of value-added processing.
There needs to be a modernization of Canada’s regulatory system for plant-based foods because it is too difficult to commercially launch products in this country.
“It’s easier to bring these products to market in the U.S.,” he said.
