KeyGene breeds new bean variety void of anti-nutritional traits under National Protein Strategy

29 Jan 2024 --- To meet the Dutch government’s 2030 national target of the average diet consisting of 60% plant-based and 40% animal-based proteins as proposed by the National Protein Strategy and the Bean Deal, an additional activation campaign, Bean Meal will be set in motion next week and will coincide with World Pulses Day, February 10.

Nutrition Insight catches up with Anker Sørensen, vice president of new business, KeyGene, a plant research company and one of the partners in the Bean Deal. The company has been tasked with breeding a bean variety well-suited to the European environment and climate and free of unwanted anti-nutritional properties disliked by the market’s plant-based consumers. 

“I was asked to design a program around what we call the protein transition in the Netherlands, which is mainly getting a better balance between the consumption of animal-based proteins versus plant-based proteins that has gotten a bit out of balance since the 1950s and we need to get back to a more healthy balance,” Sørensen, tells us.

“We also wanted to combine that with the National Protein Strategy, which means there is an interest in the Netherlands and Europe to reduce the imports of proteins from abroad.”

In 2023, the European Parliament voted to boost plant protein production and consumption in a development that could make the EU less dependent on animal feed imports while helping to tackle climate change.

Promoting pulses
Bean Meal, a national activation campaign to stimulate Dutch people to eat more beans, will get underway on February 3 and is supported by supermarkets, caterers, producers and social organizations. The initiative is borne out of the Bean Deal and devotes extra attention to products from beans grown by Dutch farmers.

“Our aim is to have all citizens of The Netherlands change their eating habits toward a more plant-based diet with a key role for beans and create a level playing field for local farmers to grow and sell pulses improving our landscape and biodiversity and providing a fair income for the farmers,” a spokesperson from Bean Meal, tells us.

“In addition, the campaign will help reduce the environmental impact of the import of proteins from overseas. We consider Europe as local sourcing. Not only does our environment and our farmers take advantage of a higher intake of beans, the benefits for improving consumer health is a huge part of the deal.” 

In line with this, the Health Council of the Netherlands presented an advisory report to the Dutch government recommending policy measures to guide the general population on adopting a plant-based diet. The information was submitted to the Minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality and the State Secretary of Health, Welfare and Sport, who requested it be researched and drawn up.

Sørensen continues: “On one hand, you have this nutritional consumption target. But on the other hand, you have this import of proteins and the balance of proteins in Europe is not good. We import too much and we don’t produce it ourselves.”

“Pulses as a crop has declined very much over the years in Europe, not only in the Netherlands but in all of Europe because of these very cheap imports of proteins of soy from the Americas.” 

At present, Dutch folks eat an average of 50 g of beans a week, less than half of the recommended amount by the Voedingscentrum (Netherlands Nutrition Center). Bean Meal seeks to encourage the population to eat bean-based meals in support of World Pulses Day, February 10. 

The idea is to try all kinds of beans such as kidney beans, lupins, chickpeas, field beans, edamame, capuchin and in tantalizing variations of salads, poke bowls, wraps, soups and spreads.

Supermarkets such as PLUS, Lidl, Ekoplaza and Albert Heijn are promoting the bean and have set quotas regarding the ratio of plant-based and animal based proteins they should sell, known as the Superlist Green. Bean Meal is envisioned to accelerate the objective. 

Reducing protein importsBean Meal will serve to activate the goals of the Dutch National Protein Strategy.
The Netherlands and other European countries want to reduce their dependence on non-European protein imports, which will be compensated for by cultivating beans. These pulses also contribute to fertile soil and biodiversity. 

The bean crop being cultivated by KeyGene will serve as a solution to the soy, pea and fava bean protein currently used in plant-based milks, meat replacements and protein-infused products. 

The company uses classical breeding technology in conjunction with data on how the plant operates on a DNA level. The geneticists, such as Sørensen, optimize existing natural variation and include a cutting-edge process known as induced variation to select varieties for the purpose.

“There are people looking at how they can extract protein in a good way or how they can use the extracted protein to make food products. The idea was for replacements for meat or as replacement for dairy products,” outlines Sørensen. 

“They are all looking at these beans from their own perspective and we missed this perspective of the source, the genetics, the things you put in the fields. These should be suited for this purpose from the beginning.” 

“So that in all these downstream processes, you don’t have to mask the bad taste or pay a lot to extract the anti-nutritional factors. All these things we want to fix in the source of the bean,” he says.

Another key aspect is to design a bean that would work in the context of Europe. KeyGene is in the third year of the seven-year program to develop this bean variety. “We have to build a hypothesis of which part of the DNA is responsible for these anti-nutritional factors. Then, we have to design a strategy on how we can breed that out of the bean. Then we have another theory about which part of the genome is responsible for taste and which part is responsible for the off flavors,” says Sørensen.

The company expects to have the first results of its hypothesis by the end of 2024.

Meanwhile, ProVeg Netherlands released its research findings with the Netherlands Nutrition Center about a broad spectrum of nutritional values in plant-based meat alternatives, including the critical markers salt and protein.

By Inga de Jong