AlinOVeg, ‘Innovating in plant-based food’.

Against a backdrop of accelerating food transition towards more sustainable solutions and a growing desire for food independence through the establishment of more local supply chains, AlinOVeg is a key project, driving innovation and generating new markets.

At the heart of this consortium, Roquette joins 5 other partners, from the world of research and higher education, INRAE and the Université Lumière Lyon 2, and private players, Ag Obtentions, Eurial and Greencell.

Supported by France 2030 as part of Bpifrance's call for projects entitled ‘Tomorrow's Food Needs’, part of the ‘Healthy and Sustainable Food’ acceleration strategy, AlinOVeg has been awarded €8.3m in funding (out of a total budget of €11.4m), with the aim of bringing it to market worldwide in the next few years.

The AlinOVeg project has been approved by a number of competitiveness clusters, including Vitagora and Clubster nutrition-santé-longévité.

AlinOVeg is betting on development guided by consumer expectations. It will therefore seek to offer products with optimum functional, nutritional and organoleptic qualities. In addition, the project is based on the development of more sustainable processes, thanks in particular to varietal selection geared to these final expectations, new value-adding processes and more resilient local supply chains. AlinOVeg is also aimed directly at farmers to better meet their needs and enable them to get the most out of pea and faba bean crops.

This 5-year project includes key stages in research and development, with the aim of removing technological barriers throughout the value chain.

The project brings together 10 INRAE units, including BIA, with total funding of €4m, and addresses scientific issues centred on the development of new pea and bean varieties coupled with changes in agronomic practices, the specification of the composition and functionalities of extracted ingredients, the design of innovative, more sustainable protein extraction and processing processes (in particular fermentation), the formulation of food matrices and their effects on health, including allergy, and multi-criteria evaluation across the entire value chain. INRAE will benefit from the contracting of 6 PhD students, 2 post-docs and the equivalent of 116 person-months of non-permanent technical staff.

Project partners:

Un projet soutenu par l’Etat dans le cadre de France 2030 et opéré par Bpifrance :