Plant-Based Food Innovation

About

Born Maverick To lead an ethically healthy life. A highly innovative food start-up based in Belfast offering globally competitive, sustainable and disruptive solutions. We are different because we dream, develop and lead out-front by collaborating with industry experts to deliver solutions. We think beyond existing trends as we aim to be the pioneers of future products by keeping sustainability, health and environment at the pulse of innovation. We are constantly striving towards coming up with solutions of supply chain right from farm to fork. There are shortcomings in existing plant-based products and hence we have partnered with future champion enzyme providers and food technologists to develop products which would mark a beginning of new era in food industry. We currently have three ongoing projects which are being conducted in collaboration with innovative companies and food technologists at food research organisations. We started working on these projects after a thorough consideration of gaps within current offerings and envisioning futuristic solutions to tackle the challenge of 2050 in food industry given that serving around 10 billion people with existing food supply chain is going to be just impossible. We need to change overexploiting same old crops and we need to change traditional ways of farming. We need to act, and we need to act, right now! Plant-Based Milk: Being conducted in partnership with CAMPDEN BRI and DSM. Why? The current offerings in the market lack on nutrition as compared to dairy milk and we are far away from being anywhere close to better than dairy at present as the solutions available currently are not viable. - Most are either nut based - Lack protein and calcium - Taste, texture is a concern given insoluble nutrients within grains - Most of the consumers drinking these products are women and they rely heavily on soy for protein which ironically produces estrogen and in few years’ time studies suggest soy to be a main catalyst in developing breast cancer in women and hence this needs to be tackled now. - Oat and other alternatives offer taste but the calcium content present within them is a challenge. Hence, there is a need of plant-based milk developed from a grain which can fill in the above shortcomings. Our Solution: Plant based milk being developed from a combination of bases along with pseudo cereal grain which is naturally gluten free and high in nutrition such as protein and calcium and the taste is lighter on consumers by treatment of enzyme actions which can also be used to offer solutions based on taste profiling of consumers in different territories. We would then be working on making it suitable even for infants and to develop other derivatives such as yoghurts and creams out of this plant-based milk which would be fairly straight forward by introducing plant-based cultures. The major Swiss dairy company has already adapted our findings till date and are successfully launching this product through their vegan brand and private label brands within their territory by this year end. We have not given away any exclusivity to them and are already in talks with other major players in different markets to commercialise this project successfully. Developing Atlantic Shrimps/Scallops from Seaweed strains. Being developed along with Queens University, Belfast and RSSL. Project funded by Innovate UK. Why? Current products available in market fail to replicate the seafoods on molecular level and are usually made up of starch heavy ingredients and shaping them in the form of shrimps which doesn't serve the entire purpose of providing nutritious alternative to seafood which resembles on structural and taste levels. The production of these disruptive plant-based products would make it more acceptable by the consumers and also make the region be more prepared to generate high quality locally produced food in times of any future disruption. The greenhouse gas emissions being generated from the wild catch of seafood has only increased over the time given the demand for luxury products such as prawns which are mostly consumed for its taste and texture aspects. The farming of prawns only leads to the environment damage as they require intensive protein feeds to be cultured which leads to imbalance in the biodiversity as every prawn needs to be fed double the amount of its size produced. Also, the current plant-based prawns are widely imported from countries such as East Asian countries which leads to immense carbon footprints and growing demand for vegan food products has only increased the imports of these products. The global population projections do suggest there is an immediate need to increase food supply chain by 70% by 2050 and the current model of water and land intensive food production won't work. Hence this project would emphasise on exploring seaweeds to develop unique products which carry commercially viable taste profiles in order to combat future resource scarcity and build robust food supply structure locally. Our Solution: 1. Identification of seaweed strains available in Northern Ireland which match the Atlantic seafood and provide sustainable solutions while bringing down the cost structure through local sourcing of raw materials. 2. Developing taste, texture and compatibility based on molecular computational analysis which matches Atlantic seafood. 3. Designing processing techniques which can be easily upscaled with existing food processing mechanism in small and medium scale industries 4. Developing extended shelf life in order to make this product export compatible. 5. Designing sustainable packaging for the final product. The results of potential seaweed strains would be used to work on future projects in order to develop newer seafood products out of it. We are 80-85% closer to one of the unique solutions in global market which isn’t lab grown and is 100% cruelty/guilt free. We are already being approached by major investors/ companies to work in collaboration but we are waiting on to make sure we have right partners who can take it globally with strong channels in place. Plant-Based Lollies/Pops Being Conducted in partnership with CAFRE and BENEO. Why? As compared to ice creams these are not seasonal liking for consumers as they are always seen as a product of celebration spread across the year, but this offering has not been developed in a way where this could be used as a product to add value to consumers lifestyle through provision of health benefits especially in regions of lower sunlight and to strengthen immune/gut system. Given its liking amongst all age groups this can be enhanced in a way where nutrients can be fortified to cater the shortcoming of essential aspects such as Vitamin and dietary fibres while designing them in a way that they are also suitable for infants and celebratory choice of food. Our Solution: We are developing vegan popsicles with flavours both suitable for adults and infants in a way that they are fortified with Vit D and Fructan(Oligofructose), which is a functional fibre. These functional fibres are derived from Inulin through partial enzymatic hydrolysis and are a source of chicory roots. They are meant for improving the balance of intestinal flora while keeping the blood sugar and calories in check naturally. The pandemic has made us realise the role vitamin D plays when it comes to boosting our immune system and also the raising concern over the humans not intaking required amount of functional fibres has been the concept in developing these products. In order to add flavours, we have come up with gluten free, non-gmo and halal combinations of coffee, Irish whiskey, pinacolada, coconut cream, etc which would be non-alcoholic. Besides these flavours, we also have specific fruit and veggie flavours for children. Even SACN has approved higher dose requirements of Vit D starting 2021.