N°65 - Marché / Protéines Improve, dedicated to the proteins Fruit of a French Public/Private Partnership, Improve dedicates its research to promoting the use of the proteins of the future. Denis Chéreau, its General Manager, describes the future challenges of the sector in order to meet the global protein needs. Actif’s Magazine: Actif’s Magazine: native to animal proteins from a When was Improve born What is the subject nutritional, economic or sustai- and what are its missions? that drives Improve? nable point of view. It should be kept in mind that the process of Denis Chéreau: Denis Chéreau: producing alternative proteins, IMPROVE is the first European What drives us is the observa- regardless of their extraction innovation platform fully dedi- tion that our operating model is source, must be righteous and cated to the valorisation of pro- not sustainable! Global agricul- as efficient as possible. teins extracted from plants and tural production accounts for other alternative sources. It was 10 billion tonnes, 555 million Actif’s Magazine: 022 created in 2013, bringing toge- plant-based proteins, of which Why this challenge of ther companies such as Tereos, ¾ are given to animals to diversifying plant-based Sofiprotéol, In Vivo and Vivescia produce 89 million animal pro- protein sources? Industries, bioeconomy players teins with an average conver- through the French IAR cluster, sion efficiency of 4.9%. Only Denis Chéreau: research through Extractis, the 115 million tonnes of plant- As we can see, the current University of Picardy, INRA, and based proteins directly reach supply of plant-based proteins financing. Improve is a partner our diet, 2 million tonnes is monopolized by soy. In fact, of the consortium Protéines thereof being protein ingre- soy is 30 years ahead of the France, which benefits from dients (isolates and concen- history of plant-based proteins. support from the State support trates) mainly extracted from They have have plenty of time since, due to Anne Lauvergeon’s soy (56%) and wheat (43%). to develop high-quality pro- report, proteins have become Secondly, only 18% of the cesses and products and soy one of the 7 national priori- world’s population can afford proteins are currently mar- ties. Our mission is to support a daily animal protein intake of keted at extremely competi- our customers in the develop- 60 g. Which ultimately means tive prices. Wheat gluten is the ment and production of protein that ¾ of the world’s agricul- second source of plant-based ingredients. To this end, we have tural resources are used by proteins that has entered the state-of-the-art equipment for less than 20% of the popula- market. The other sources may dry and wet fractionation and tion. Another element to be be called “outsiders”, including laboratories (170 m²) for the cha- taken into consideration is pea, which is in the lead, but racterization of products high in the low conversion efficiency still far behind soy and wheat. protein, of their functional and of plant-based proteins into We believe that a diversified nutritional properties, compo- animal proteins by livestock. supply would allow relocating sition, digestibility and orga- Of course, other resources the production of plant-based noleptic properties. We have a such as microalgae, yeasts or proteins because, please note, 800 m² pilot unit and in-house insects can be explored. But soy comes mainly from the knowledge and capacity to meet plant-based proteins currently United States, Argentina and the needs of our customers. are the most interesting alter- Brazil, even though a French ■ / Octobre - Novembre - Décembre 2018 / N°65 / L’Actualité des Ingrédients Fonctionnels & Santé