The vegetable market could be expanded as a result of an East Anglian investment initiative aimed at helping businesses develop a new generation of plant-based foods.
The plant science for nutrition programme is being run by the New Anglia local enterprise partnership which covers Norfolk and Suffolk. It is one of 43 ‘high potential opportunity’ (HPO) projects being co-ordinated by the Department for Business and Trade to attract investment to regions of the UK.
The FPC Future conference in March heard that a number of spin-out companies from research institutes in the region were already working on products such as a ‘high health’ broccoli soup, and it was likely more would follow with the investment the HPO programme is designed to attract.
“It’s about using research to improve the nutritional value and health benefits of plant-derived food products,” said New Anglia inward investment manager Stuart Catchpole. “Rather than fund development of specific products, it will help the region’s research institutes support businesses and help the transition to more plant-based diets.”
Jonathan Clarke, head of business development at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, said the approach could ‘revitalise’ the market for vegetable staples at a time when growers were finding it hard to achieve a profit selling them as commodities. “We are finding ways to re-evaluate the value of food,” he said.
As an example he said The Smarter Food Company, a spin-out business from the Quadram Institute (formerly the Institute of Food Research), is trialling an instant soup made from a new variety of broccoli with defined benefits for Type 2 diabetes and some cancers. The broccoli for the product is currently being grown ‘under licence’ but Dr Clarke told The Vegetable Farmer: “We are looking at ways to make some of these kinds of varieties more widely available.”
Trials are already under way with a grower on another new broccoli variety that has been developed for indoor production. “It has validated health benefits but we now need to know how it works in commercial production and whether it can be produced in sufficient volumes,” he said.
That variety is intended for production under glass and for automated harvesting, taking just 40 days from seed to harvest. “The aim is for it to compete in the Tenderstem market,” said Dr Clarke. “And we are looking at taking the genetics into other headed brassica types.
“It will be a product for the new generation of consumer who is mainly looking to microwave their meals. We can ensure consistent ‘cookability’ and can vary the flavour from mild to quite peppery. It starts with a retailer looking for a crop it can sell year-round, reducing dependence on imports and improving continuity of supply. On top of that we can introduce health benefits.
“I think the public could start to see their food as a component of their healthcare, not just as nutrition.”
“But we are also keen to talk to growers about what they see as their production constraints so we can work with the industry to develop varieties that are better for growers, commercially – such as broccoli that can be harvested with fewer passes in the field, for example.”
Other inward investment programmes being co-ordinated by the Department for Business and Trade (which replaced the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy in February) and local enterprise partnerships include food processing automation in Lincolnshire, plant-based protein products in the north-east and precision farming in the West Midlands.
Read more news and features from the UK’s only publication dedicated to growers of field vegetables, outdoor salad and potatoes in our monthly publication The Vegetable Farmer.