This powerful pea is the new vegetable protein of the moment

You can call it an exaggerated reaction to some of the bad headlines on soy, or attribute it to a concern about the environmental impact of the meat. Anyway, It is hard to ignore the new favorite protein source of the food industry: peas or peas.

This month, the producer of meat substitutes Beyond the meat He went into history when his stock nearly tripled in value on his first trading day. The vegan burgers and sausages of the company lead the fake meat revolution, with pea as the star ingredient. The popularity of legume proteins has increased, particularly among meat, dairy and seafood substitutes.

To the products of Beyond the meat The new lightlife hamburger comes this month in US supermarkets, based on peas. There is also Ripple Foods, with a range of pea-based dairy substitutes.

These foods also use legumes: JUST, Tuna Tuna-Free Tuna Good Catch Foods and UK-based Nomad Foods' Green Cuisine Line, which includes burgers, sausages and meatless Swedish meatballs. .

As peas have become such an important commodity, the giants of agriculture are preparing to increase their supply. According to Henk Hoogenkamp, ​​an advisor and board member of several food companies, global pea protein sales will quadruple by 2025. This increase will be mainly due to increased product consumption. meat.

Anticipating the launch of new products, Lightlife bought the ingredient equivalent to more than a year. "We think long term with pea protein," said Michael Lenahan, vice president of marketing. "There was uncertainty at that time about how much would be available."

Ripple Foods has created its own supply chain, working with farmers and developing its own process of cleaning peas and extracting their proteins.

Supply concerns are likely to be short-term if demand continues to grow as expected.

However, Beyond the meat is already looking to mix its list of ingredients.

"Pea protein is an incredible resource for us, it works well, but it's not special," said company CEO Ethan Brown. "If you think of the plant kingdom, there are many other sources that we can use: mung beans, brown rice, mustard seeds, lentils, we will have a much more diverse protein bank."

According to him, the use of a variety of ingredients will give the company's products a "more varied bite" and a texture closer to the flesh of animals.

Not so long ago, soybean dominated the plant kingdom, becoming the basis of most of the best-known meat-less products, such as the Morningstar Farms Grillers, the Lightlife Gimme Lean sausage and the Gardein Chick's n strips. In recent years, food trends have turned against him. Although soy is easier to buy than pea protein, it is also a genetically engineered allergen that has been the target of many conflicting claims on health risks.

Ripple uses peas, say its founders, because they are the most available vegetable protein besides soy.

"Soy has a bad reputation with consumers for no reason," said co-founder Adam Lowry. Nothing prevents the company from using soybeans for its products in other countries that have no aversion to oil, as in Asia, he said.

Soy does not disappear in the United States either, as it is more and more requested, and now gluten free, Impossible Burger.

Nevertheless, brands loyal to soy might consider new strategies.

"We think that the election is the most important thing, so we recognize that some people want to stay away from certain things"said Steve Cahillane, CEO of Kellogg, whose brand portfolio includes Morningstar Farms, in an interview in January. "Our job is not to try to convince the consumer, he is wrong, there is nothing wrong with the soy, eat it, it is not a winning strategy"

Kellogg will not reformulate its current products, but will be able to create new ones for emerging niches, Cahillane said.

However, the pea protein might not be free of worries. The Detox project, a research organization that badyzes foods for glyphosate, a pesticide, has badyzed it over the last year and the results, like those of other products studied, have not been badyzed. not good.

"We are hardly finding a source of clean pea protein somewhere," said Henry Rowlands, project director. In fact, products labeled as organic contained many more pesticides than conventional versions, he said.