Legume Proteins

Legumes, including the common bean, soy beans, lupin and peas, are used as important sources of food proteins. Legumes are very suitable for the preparation of protein isolates because of their high protein content, low cost and wide acceptability. Soy and pea protein isolates are already manufactured and applied as ingredients in many food matrixes and significant efforts are put into the development of further legume derived proteins.

A common problem to the legume protein concentrates and isolates is the difficulty in eliminating beany taste, dark color from oxidation and anti-nutritional factors like trypsin inhibitors and lectins – which are also proteins. Often these issues require extreme processing conditions, like high heat and organic solvent extraction, with product losses and protein denaturation as the result.

The LPS team employs the ChimerAds technology as a novel tool for selective and gentle isolation of legume proteins. In addition we develop food protein ingredients based on individually isolated legume proteins having optimal functionality in specific food applications.