A project worth US$1.1 million to build infrastructure for the processing of soy-based products is being awarded to the US-based Purdue University Food Entrepreneurship and Manufacturing Institute (FEMI), in partnership with the University of Arkansas and the University of Missouri.

Dharmendra Mishra, associate professor and director of FEMI, will lead the project born out of a national discussion on the soybean value chain. 

“Soybeans currently produce the highest protein yields per unit area compared to all other plant-based sources,” Mishra comments. “The major challenge is that quality issues with flavor and functionality have impacted the utilization of currently available soybean protein products for food.”

The project will focus on phenotyping for compositional traits in novel value-added applications, trials to eliminate pressure on small- to medium-scale industry sectors and final product quality and sensory evaluations.

Tapping into value-added applications
The project will focus on phenotyping for compositional traits in novel value-added applications, trials to eliminate pressure on small- to medium-scale industry sectors and final product quality and sensory evaluations.

The global demand for soy protein isolate/concentrate is expected to increase 80 times, while the worldwide meat substitute market is expected to be worth US$140 billion by 2029, Mishra details.

Increased soy production for renewable diesel production is expected to increase by 10% over the next three years.

The global demand for soy protein isolate/concentrate is expected to increase 80 times.“There was a critical need to help the soybean farmers and processors. Our project proposes to solve the bottleneck of small- and medium-scale processing and facilitate the scale-up of identity preserved (IP) systems through our multistate team,” Mishra says. “Our project fits the overall strategic vision of the connectivity for soy users to the market.”

The Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research co-funded the project, a federal organization that supports research activities focused on addressing fundamental agriculture problems, including plant health and production, agricultural economics and rural communities and agricultural and food security.

Collaborative efforts
Fellow Purdue team members for the grant are Senay Simsek, department head and professor of food science; Katy Rainey, associate professor of agronomy; and Karen Hudson, USDA-ARS research and molecular biologist. 

Simsek believes this highly interdisciplinary work requires collaboration and coordinated efforts with researchers and scientists from different disciplines across institutions.

“Soy-based products have continued to grow over the past years and are expecting continued growth into the future,” Simsek notes. “With this grant, Purdue Food Science will be a hub for research, development and education that will connect and bridge the gaps between growers, breeders, researchers, students, the food industry and consumers.”

Purdue’s Skidmore Sales and Distributing Food Product Development Laboratory and Pilot Plant enable stakeholders to come together and develop new soy-based products using state-of-the-art manufacturing processes to further initiatives in plant-powered protein, refinement into oils, powders and other value-added products, Mishra highlights. 

Purdue will also offer sensory testing and assessment of consumer acceptance of soy products through Food Sciences’ sensory lab. 

In similar advancements, researchers recently determined that processing soy increases its nutritional quality, affirming its status as a valuable source of protein for plant-based foods. Scientists from Unilever and Wageningen University challenged the concern that processing soy products make them less nutritious, proving it false.