Nutritional Food Ingredients

We enable improved ingredients for sustainable foods and supply chains

Healthy nutrition is becoming more important and consumers increasingly reject highly processed foods. Being in the seed business for many decades we‘ve used our experience and R&D resources to turn the spotlight on protein crops with a new approach.

Consumers who look for meat, dairy, fish and egg alternatives also care about what is behind a food brand. That includes local, sustainable and ethical sourcing as well as a ‘clean label’. With differentiating ingredients, these aspects are also addressable to create premium products.

The fast development of ever more sophisticated plant based foods means, there is a lack of supply of protein ingredients with differentiated function, specific characteristics, locally growable with improved sustainability. What is more, traits such as a beany off-taste or unappealing color become bottlenecks for success.

This has inspired us to study the genetics of proteins with functional properties to develop solutions for these issues. After all, protein properties in foods are the result of plant genetics, environment as well as extraction and processing techniques.

The mission

Our goal is to utilize state of the art plant breeding to deliver improved functional ingredients from traditional crops in sustainable supply chains

Karen Ilsemann, Research lead for KWS Nutritional Food Ingredients

Through partnerships with food producers we contribute to tasty alternatives and successful products

Close collaboration is key when it comes to bringing new products to life and delivering bespoke ingredients through ethical and sustainable supply ecosystems.

Our ingredient partnerships start with a closer look at the producer’s current or future product portfolio. Here, the goal is to identify direct links to our approach and to discuss opportunities. Once the mission is set, we start by testing genetically different ingredients with the proprietary processes to deliver the improvements looked for, for example:

Better Emulsification

Selected protein profiles to give improved binding with lipids and water to enhance the eating qualities for meat substitutes, and melting cheese alternatives when cooking. Creating more stable foams and setting in dairy substitutes.

Clean Label

Varieties with reduced off flavour compounds, requiring fewer flavor enhancers. Selected functional protein qualities requiring less stabilizers and binders on the food label. Regionally adapted protein crop varieties to facilitate local sourcing.

Improved Texture

Protein profiles optimized for gelation in semi-soft and hard dairy alternatives or to improve 'bite' and 'chew' in meat analog for a better eating experience and attractive visual reaction to heat during cooking plant based products.