Summary:

With the consumers’ increasing preference for plant-based protein, the requirements for better functionality and performance of plant-based protein products are also increasing. However, only 0.14 % of the plant protein market is taken up by canola protein. At present most of the canola meal is used in animal feed, which undermines the huge potential of such a high-quality, nutritious, economic and sustainable source of protein for human consumption.

The identification of novel and sustainable protein sources underscore a critical need for transformative approaches focused on sustainable processing. This is accentuated when fermented products are produced because the requirements for the fermentation cultures for fermented plant-based analogues of dairy products differ from the production of dairy products or cheese from milk. Only few studies characterized the performance of lactic starter cultures in production of non-dairy cheese products and only few starter cultures for production of non-dairy cheeses are commercially available.

The project will enable to valorize canola meal and accelerate the selection of starter cultures for fermentation of plant-based analogues of fermented dairy products.