Nucaps

Functional candies with natural extracts, bread made with high-protein faba bean flour concentrate, microencapsulated probiotics, or vegetable burgers, escalopes, and nuggets based on pea and faba bean protein ready for industrial development. These are some of the results obtained from the research conducted over the last three years as part of the project “Development, functional evaluation, and industrial applicability of new vegetable protein derivatives (HIDROPEP)”.

At the same time, work has been carried out to improve the purity of protein ingredients, to obtain hydrolysates with functional potential, and to validate scalable technological processes that allow their transfer to the industrial environment.

This initiative, born within the Navarra Agri-Food Cluster (NAGRIFOOD), coordinated by Grupo AN and funded by the Government of Navarra, aimed to research and develop new foods that incorporate high-value-added vegetable protein derivatives through new approaches and technological solutions applicable to the agri-food industry.

To achieve this goal, the consortium has had the collaboration of knowledge centers such as the University of Navarra and CNTA (National Center for Food Technology and Safety). Five local agri-food sector entities have also participated, covering the entire value chain from primary production to food processing and distribution. In addition to NUCAPS, these include Sanygran, Monbake, El Caserío de Tafalla, and the already mentioned Grupo AN.

Ana Luisa Martínez, R&D Director at NUCAPS, highlighted the potential of these proteins as functional materials. “The project has allowed us to validate new protein sources, such as pea and faba bean, for use in encapsulation,” she explained. Specifically, she detailed that “we have successfully formed micro and nanoparticles with high encapsulation efficiencies for both probiotics and phenolic compounds.” She also emphasized that “these systems improve the gastrointestinal resistance of probiotics and the thermal stability of the active ingredients, facilitating their incorporation into foods.”