Small-scale Manitoba processor | Burcon hopes to find a partner to develop the clear protein
A Vancouver company is building a small pea protein production plant in Winnipeg.
Burcon NutraScience Corp. wouldn’t divulge the capacity or the cost of the plant, but it will be used to process yellow split peas into the company’s patented Peazazz protein isolate.
The company completed a $5.75 million equity offering in November. President Johann Tergesen said at the time that the money would allow the company to focus on its Peazazz protein.
Paul Lam, Burcon’s business development analyst, said the timing is ideal to transition from the company’s pilot plant located in its Winnipeg laboratory to a semi-work production facility.
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“Right now plant protein is sort of booming,” he said. “It’s just the right time for us to scale up and do it ourselves.”
Peazazz is a completely soluble, transparent and heat tolerant protein in beverages with a pH below four.
The product can be used in low pH fruit juices and juice blends, sport nutrition drinks, powdered beverages, fortified waters, bars, baked goods and vegetarian and vegan food.
“Since announcing Peazazz in November 2011, interest from potential customers for a clean-tasting, transparent pea protein has been very encouraging,” Tergesen said.
The small-scale commercial facility will produce enough pea protein for interested food and beverage manufacturers to conduct product development work.
The company hopes that will result in a development partner to help build a full-size production facility. Other options include licensing the technology to a manufacturer or for Burcon to build a full-scale plant on its own.
Burcon signed a non-binding letter of intent with a commercialization partner for Peazazz last August, but on Jan. 29 it announced it was terminating the letter of intent.
Planning and engineering for the plant is complete, and equipment has been ordered. The plan is to produce commercial volumes of Peazazz by July, in time for the product to make its debut at the 2013 IFT Annual Meeting and Food Expo in Chicago.
Lam said there is plenty of interest in Peazazz because of the increasing price of mainstream meat, dairy and egg protein products, which is expected to continue.
“The market conditions are really ripe for plant proteins.”
Burcon also holds patents on soy and canola protein products. In 2011 it licensed Clarisoy soy protein to Archer Daniels Midland, which has built a production facility and is responsible for all production and marketing of the product. ADM made its first sale of the product in December.
“They’re moving forward at a really unexpectedly fast pace to bring Clarisoy to market,” said Lam.
He also said the company has found plenty of interest in Supertein, its canola protein product. However, he said it doesn’t have the same history in human food as soy and pea protein, and as a result doesn’t have regulatory approval in key markets such as the European Union.
Supertein is still in the company’s commercialization plans, he added.
“We’re trying to bring Peazazz to market first and then the canola protein will be out next,” said Lam.
A research team at Jena University in Germany recently published a study in the journal Clinical Nutrition showing that there is no difference between rapeseed protein and commonly used soy protein.
The study could pave the way to gaining approval of rapeseed-canola protein in human food in the EU.
