FabaFood Project: Building a Sustainable Food System with Innovative Faba Bean Solutions

February 26, 2025 | Article

Project Overview:
Flora Food Group, has joined KeyGene, Agrifirm, Ebro Ingredients, and ME-AT in launching the FabaFood project, a collaborative initiative aimed at significantly contributing to the sustainability of our food system. This innovative project is part of the EFRO 2021-2027 Oost-Nederland program and stems from the Bean Deal.

Objective
The global food industry faces increasing pressure to develop more sustainable production systems and consumption patterns. The FabaFood project addresses this challenge by focusing on the faba bean (field bean), a protein crop highly suitable for cultivation in the Dutch climate. The FabaFood project is developing new food-grade field bean varieties specifically designed to improve quality, taste, colour, and texture for human consumption.

Collaborative Approach

As part of this consortium, each partner contributes specialised expertise:

KeyGene is breeding new food-grade field bean varieties using innovative speed-breeding technology to enhance both input and output traits with Agrifirm testing the improved varieties, conducting agronomic research, and developing a crop model.

Ebro Ingredients is investigating and developing protein extraction methods that align with the new characteristics of the improved field bean varieties.

Flora Food Group and ME-AT are exploring and developing techniques to process the extracted proteins into new products.

The ultimate goal of the FabaFood project is to establish a viable business case for all stakeholders in the faba bean value chain—from farm to fork—by creating innovative prototypes of field bean-based meat and dairy substitutes that excel in taste, texture, and cost-effectiveness.

About EFRO
The EFRO 2021-2027 Oost-Nederland program strengthens the region's innovation capacity and enhances the earning potential of East Netherlands businesses. Additionally, it contributes to solutions for the energy transition. The program is financially supported by the European Union.