- Background
- What we're looking for
- What we can offer you
- Q&A
Plant-based proteins continue to play an increasingly important role in the food industry, driven by consumer demand for sustainable, nutritious, and appealing alternatives. Despite advances in texture and nutrition, many commercially available plant proteins present significant sensory and visual limitations that restrict their broader use.
One persistent challenge is color. Certain commercially available plant‑based protein ingredients naturally exhibit a dark brown coloration as a result of Maillard reactions, thermal processing, and, in some cases, oxidative reactions during ingredient manufacture. This inherent dark color is subsequently carried through high‑moisture extrusion (HME), leading to finished products with a darker‑than‑desired appearance. Such visual outcomes often fail to meet consumer expectations for fresh, clean, and appetizing protein products.
A dark color is especially restrictive for applications such as fish or chicken analogs, and other categories where light or neutral tones are expected. Additionally, an undesirable color appearance can undermine the sensory experience even when texture and nutrition remain excellent. Solving this challenge would unlock new opportunities for product development, enhance visual appeal, and help deliver superior eating experiences across a wide range of applications.
We aim to identify ingredient solutions, processing technologies, or material treatment approaches that can reduce the inherent dark brown color of a specific plant-based protein. The goal is to achieve a significantly lighter, ideally white or light beige protein after high-moisture extrusion, without compromising structural integrity, texture formation, or nutritional quality.
We are specially interested in technologies that can be integrated with minimal capital investment or process redesign.
- Ingredient-based solutions
- Other innovative, validated approaches aligned with the challenge
- Pre-formulation material treatment or refinement (e.g., purification, adsorption, conditioning)
- Processing technologies that lighten dark color (e.g., enzymatic treatment, fermentation, process-parameter interventions)
- Evidence or strong technical rationale demonstrating the solution’s ability to reduce color from dark brown to light beige or white in proteins or similar biomaterials
- Clear scientific rationale explaining why the proposed approach is unlikely to cause degradation, oxidation or loss of functional properties
- Not expected to generate off flavors, off aromas, or loss of nutritional value
- Compliant or have a plausible pathway to compliance with food and pet food regulations in the USA and EU
- Stable performance under high moisture extrusion process
- Scalable with strong supply availability
- Supports clean label claims (natural, minimally processed)
- Sustainable sourcing or lower environmental impact
- Artificial or synthetic chemicals
- No titanium dioxide
The Q&A is now closed.
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