NEW PROTEINS ▶▶▶
The Russian feed industry could benefit from pea processing.
rolled out by the Russian chemical giant Uralchem. This com- pany has recently invested 300 million rubles in building a pi- lot unit for advanced yellow pea processing, said Azan Gafa- rov, general director of Uralchem Innovation. It will produce 200 kg per hour of protein isolate from pea meal at the terri- tory of the Skolkovo Innovation Center – a Russian analogue of Silicone Valley. “Yellow peas are one of the most promising crops in the world for obtaining vegetable raw materials,” said Kirill Kayem, senior vice president for Innovation at Skolkovo. “By processing it, you get pea starch and fibre. These products are widely used for the production of sports and dietary nutri- tion,” he added. Peas have several advantages compared to soy or wheat isolate – high-quality protein with an almost complete set of amino acids and hypoallergenicity. Pea iso- late is becoming more popular worldwide. In 2019, Cargill in- vested US$ 75 million in North American pea protein produc- er, Puris – one of the main suppliers of vegetable meat substitute producer Beyond Meat. This investment was ex- pected to double the production of proprietary pea proteins, starches, and fibres.
Feed instead of food While in the US advanced pea processing companies are pri- marily focused on the food industry, in Russia, pea products are likely to be mainly used in animal feed since local custom- ers are still reluctant to consume vegitarian or vegan meat substitutes. The market share of plant-based meat substitutes is not expected to grow in Russia in the next decade, said Rustam Khafizov, a leading analyst of Russia’s biggest meat
30 ▶ ALL ABOUT FEED | Volume 29, No. 8, 2021
producer Cherkizovo. The main issue with plant-based poul- try meat substitutes is their nutritional value, as, alongside plant products, they contain various food additives, imitating the taste of meat, Khafizov stresses, adding that this could discourage consumers. Sergey Lakhtyukhov, director general of the Russian Union of Poultry Producers, said plant-based poultry meat substitutes are a hype and will capture only a tiny niche of the global poultry market. So far, pea products are not widely used in the Russian feed industry, mainly because imported feedstuffs are rather ex- pensive. “These days in Russia, you can buy only imported pea isolate, but the price is relatively high. A year ago, it cost about 400 rubles (US$ 5.5) per kilogramme, compared to 200 rubles (US$ 2.8) per kilogramme for soybean isolate,” said Alexey Kiselev, director of the Russian vegan meat substitute producer Welldone, adding that better availability of pea products would make them more popular in Russia for vari- ous categories of consumers. “The pea processing industry worldwide is set to double in the next few years,” Sergey Suichev, Russian pea industry ex- pert, said, adding that most of these projects target the food industry. “They employ expensive technologies, which would be hard to pay for by selling products to feed producers.” Pea processing could effectively produce feedstuffs if dry technologies are applied as, when using aspiration, pea meal is separated into two fractions: protein and starch, Suichev said. “Of course, we are not talking about pure separation, as the protein content is 55% to 60%, but this protein is cheaper and could be used by feed producers”. According to Suichev, two companies in Russia are already processing peas using the dry method, selling some products to feed companies. The main problem, however, is what to do with the starch. One of these companies has developed a technology for sec- ondary starch processing, obtaining a product that is ap- proved to feed ruminants. “This approach is promising, and I believe that two pea processing plants are clearly not enough to meet the entire demand on the Russian market,” Suichev said. A similar opinion is expressed by Sergey Mikhnyuk, the head of the National Feed Union. “We are aware of these two start-up projects and believe that two pea processing plants are not enough to meet the entire demand on the market of the Eurasian Union,” Mikhnyuk said.
Nothing is guaranteed However, there is a lot of scepticism when it comes to the ad- vanced processing of grain and legumes since not all projects in this field eventually come to fruition. In July 2020, Lipetsk- based company Avrora announced plans to invest 4 billion rubles (US$ 50 million) to build a pea processing plant to pro- duce pea isolate, among other things. The designed produc- tion capacity was set at 50,000 tonnes of protein per year, but there have been no reports of any significant progress during the past year.
PHOTO: SLAVYANSK CANNED FACTORY
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36
