High tech makes agriculture a top player in agrifood

In the view of Paulus Costers, programme manager at the Green Chemistry Campus, an innovation centre in West Brabant where researchers engage in extensive experimentation to determine the possible applications of vegetable proteins, the western world needs to wake up to the importance of the food transition with some urgency. He points out that it may not yet be as well-recognised a concept as the energy transition, but it is no less important to human life and society. “The pressure on natural systems is extremely high. If we want to change that situation, we have to act in a way that benefits our citizens, consumers and nature. The protein transition is an essential element in this endeavour, because protein is currently the most unsustainable part of our food chain. Carbohydrates are relatively easy to replace as they are already plant-based, however the protein issue is particularly urgent because it is still almost entirely animal-based.” 

Wim de Laat at The Protein Brewery in Breda is well aware of this challenge. He has devoted the last 10 years to producing proteins from sugars at a laboratory scale. Beets, maize and potatoes are an equally nutritious, but much cheaper and above all more sustainable, source of protein than cows, pigs and chickens. “We have the capability to satisfy the global population's complete protein needs without nitrogen emissions, without animal suffering and without soil exhaustion.” In 2021, The Protein Brewery will set up the first commercial-scale process to replicate the results it has so far achieved in the laboratory. “We are building our first demo plant for this. Partly because of existing regulations, we will not be able to scale up to the level demanded by the market for another three years.”

Alongside protein production, Sandra van den Poll also sees agri-tech as an essential component of the transition. Here too, Brabant is a recognised global player. BBLeap, where precision agriculture is elevated to a completely different level, is a good example of a company active in agri-tech. The founder of this start-up based in Gilze-Rijen, Peter Millenaar, realises that he has barely scratched the surface in terms of this technology’s development potential. “It's too early to speak of a major commercial success, but we will get there.” BBLeap designs and builds nozzles that can be mounted on existing agricultural machines to provide precision metering at individual plant level. “Not on the basis of the average of the average, which is how existing machines work, but rather a specific metered quantity that can be adjusted to a different value for small areas measuring 50 x 50 cm, or even 25 x 25 cm.”  

BBLeap has developed a unit called the Leapbox, which is capable of changing the volume delivered to the 250 pulsating nozzles at a rate of up to 40 times a second. The first field unit has been built and put into service, in close collaboration with an international leader in precision agriculture, Jacob van den Borne in Reusel. The latter is already very enthusiastic about the new device, however Millenaar is still far from satisfied. “We always want to achieve more than customers feel possible. Furthermore, we don't create our solutions to meet a specific market demand. We try to conceive and design something that will produce the best result. We aren’t farmers and we don’t grow produce: we are a technology company that can help farmers by coming up with solutions they haven’t thought of themselves.”

According to Van den Poll, all these examples illustrate the province’s strength in agri-tech and the sheer scale of the protein transition. “I see both developments in a specific context, as solutions for the major issues we currently face in the agricultural sector. Innovation can help us overcome the challenges that are now bubbling to the surface with increasing regularity.”  

It is exactly that powerful combination of agri-food with food tech and agri-tech as logical supplemental building blocks that places Brabant in a special and fairly unique position. “Because the province is densely populated, with an agri-food sector that has a major impact on the living environment, there is a pressing need here for smart solutions that minimise undesirable effects on people, animals and the environment”, Van den Poll comments. “And because the rest of the world increasingly faces the same problems, our far-reaching expertise in this area is an asset we can use to good effect. I see a golden opportunity for exporting Brabant’s know-how in agri-tech and food tech.” 

The ongoing development in the sector is supported by the nine agri-food clusters in the province. Foodtech Brainport in Helmond is one of them. Director Jos de Boer explains how this innovation centre in Helmond contributes to the development of new methods of sustainable food processing: “We focus on circular food production methods. We help make food innovations market-ready and publicise new technology so SMEs can start using it.”  

Foodtech Brainport concentrates on four lines of research, says De Boer. “Preservation techniques to increase the shelf life of foodstuffs, smart food processing using robots and, last but not least, reducing industrial food waste.” The creative use of the outer leaves of an endive for producing meat croquettes is an example of the latter line of research. “They have a meaty structure, so they are an ideal ingredient for a tasty croquette. Chips made from unsaleable apples are another example, or hamburgers made from minced meat mixed with the stems of oyster mushrooms.” 

The potential is almost limitless according to De Boer, however a technological breakthrough is almost always needed to bring a product to market economically. “Preparing something in a kitchen is one thing, scaling it up for industrial production is much more challenging.” Foodtech Brainport helps businesses solve that problem, possibly by deploying its own ‘innovation brokers’. Together with the eight other clusters, this initiative ensures that Brabant will maintain its leading position in agri-food, both now and in the years to come.