Plant-Based
Functionalisation of plant proteins for the development of plant-based meat, egg and dairy products
Protein functionality is the key to product innovations in the smart protein sector. Identifying the suitable strategy for functional modification of proteins, preferably physical approaches is the need-of-the-hour.
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Plant-Based
- Raw materials, ingredients, and inputs
- End product formulation and manufacturing
For more information, please see the following resources:
Previous GFI-funded research related to this topic:
- https://gfi.org/researchgrants/grantee-page-process-improvement-microstructure-engineering-university-of-guelph/
- https://gfi.org/researchgrants/grantee-page-process-improvement-muscle-like-structures-from-pulse-proteins-university-of-minnesota/
- https://gfi.org/researchgrants/improving-textured-protein/
Current challenge
A key challenge in the development of plant-based meat products is to replicate the textural attributes (mouthfeel, chewiness, cohesiveness, and springiness) of conventional animal-derived meat products. Compared to their animal-derived counterparts, plant proteins have a different structural chemistry due to which they do not have the inherent anisotropic or fibrous texture. The textural parity of plant-based meat vis-à-vis conventional meat is governed by the functionality of plant protein and the type of process employed for texturisation.
Proposed solution
Exploring novel plant-based sources, mapping their functional properties and tuning them to develop versatile plant-based meat products present interesting scope for investigation. A comprehensive understanding of the functional properties needs to be unleashed for protein derived from unconventional plant-based alternative protein sources such as millets, pulses (except pea), legumes, oilseeds (except soybean) and industrial byproducts and residues. The functional properties of plant protein include solubility, water-holding capacity, oil-holding capacity, emulsification capacity, emulsion stability, foamability, foam stability, and gelation. Further, the rheological properties and thermal behaviour of plant proteins play a major role in determining the quality of the final product. Different physical, chemical and biological approaches exist for the functional modification of plant proteins, which have to be optimised for different plant proteins based on their end-use.
Successful proposals can explore answers to the following key questions:
- What are the different functionalisation strategies including physical (heat treatment; non-thermal techniques such as high-pressure processing, sonication, or cold plasma treatment; size reduction), chemical (cross-linking) and biological (enzymes or fermentation) approaches to improve the texturising ability of plant proteins?
- What are the non-protein macromolecules in plant materials (starch, pectin and dietary fibre) that can be used as texturising components in plant-based meat products?