The EU28 imports 77% of the protein it requires, for food or feed, representing an important vulnerability for our economy, risking our self-sufficiency and food security. GreenProtein aims at a major innovation by producing high-added value, food-grade and fully functional proteins and other ingredients, out of vegetal residues mainly from sugar beet. The main outcome will be the valorisation of 4,000 tons of agricultural residue /yearly into a high quality dried RuBisCo powder ready to enter into food industry production chains as an alternative of the widely extended egg white preparations or whey protein. We are the first team worldwide, covering the whole food chain, to design an extraction system of functional RuBisCO. The project will design and implement specific equipment to establish a demonstration plant with capacity of 1,500 kg/hour of vegetal residue input, rendering 28 Kg of dry RuBisCO and 82 Kg of dry dietary fibre (25-30% dry matter). The obtained protein has top valuable functionalities required in food industry, such as gelling, foaming or emulsifying. The outcomes have excellent market projection due to their application in growing consumer needs like high-protein foodstuff, vegan, halal, etc. Establishing this DEMO plant will allow fine-tuning the extraction process at industrial scale in order to define the optimal conditions for industrial manufacture. It will be built in a compact design, ready to be “plugged” to the production line, an easily replicable system with a high spreading projection in whole EU.

Sugar beet pulp (SBP) accounts for approx. 13 million tonnes in Europe and is a major residual stream from the sugar beet industry, which is currently valorised as low value feed and/or green gas. In order to increase the value of its side streams, PULP2VALUE developed multiple extraction techniques to isolate more valuable products from this large fraction of sugar beet pulp. Roughly 65% of the dry matter mass can be isolated as high value products being: microcellulose fibers (MCF) (33%), arabinose (16%) and galacturonic acid (16%). The overall objective of this project is to further establish the value chains based on MCF, arabinose (Ara) and galacturonic acid (GalA). By demonstrating an integrated and cost-effective cascading biorefinery system to refine sugar beet pulp, Cosun aims to significantly increase (20-50 times) the value of the sugar beet pulp by demonstrating applications for approximately 65% of its mass in high value markets. For each of these products PULP2VALUE identified multiple product market combinations (PMC’s). For the MCF fraction application supply chains towards detergents, personal care, oil & gas, paints & coatings and composites are developed. Throughout the years Cosun developed a pilot facility in which the state-of-the-art unit of operations were tested. Together with partners, Cosun is now planning to optimize, integrate and scale-up these processes to a demonstration scale to further supply product development in order to establish long lasting supply chains. The PULP2VALUE will target 9 new value chains resulting in a market potential of at least 350.000 tons and a potential revenue of 200 million euro. The PULP2VALUE makes available a mild and environmentally friendly biorefinery process for beet pulp compared to other biobased and fossil products. It will spur rural development in sugar beet growing districts by connecting them in new cross-sectoral value chains with the chemical and food industry.