Outstanding high-tech turns Brabant’s agriculture and food industry into a top agrifood sector

Proteins are essential in the food transition

For Paulus Costers, program manager at Green Chemistry Campus, an innovation center in Dinteloord that is experimenting with the applications of vegetable proteins, it is high time that the western world understands the importance of the food transition. In a podcast for the BOM, he points out that it may not yet be such a common concept as the energy transition, but it is no less important for humans. “In the prosperous Netherlands, we are not yet confronted with the shortages that exist in very large parts of the world. Wars often originate from a food problem. But the world is one whole, so the transition is also enormously important to us. The pressure on natural systems is extremely high. If we want to change that, we have to do so in a way that serves the citizen as well as the consumer and nature. The protein transition is essential in this respect because protein is currently the most unsustainable part of our food chain. Carbohydrates are relatively easy to replace, they are already vegetable, but it is particularly urgent on the protein side, which is still almost entirely animal-based.”

Wim de Laat of The Protein Brewery from Breda has been aware of this for a long time. At a lab level, he has been producing proteins from sugars for ten years now. Beets, corn, and potatoes are just as nutritious but much cheaper and above all a much more sustainable source of protein than cows, pigs and chickens are. “Without nitrogen emissions, without animal suffering, and much less soil-intensive, we can provide the world’s population with its complete protein needs.” Thanks to a recent investment of €22 million, next year The Protein Brewery will be able to take the first steps towards a commercial interpretation of what has until now mainly been visible at the lab level. “In 2021, we will have our first demo plant, and partly due to regulations it will cost us another three years before we can really start serving the global market on a full scale.”

Nozzles on agricultural machinery

Sandra van den Poll not only mentions the importance of protein production but also agritech as an essential part of the transition. And Brabant also plays a role in this on a global level, as evidenced by the many globally operating companies active in the agritech sector. BBLeap, where precision agriculture is taken to an entirely different level, is a good example of such a company active in precision agriculture. Founder Peter Millenaar of the start-up from Gilze-Rijen is aware that he is at the forefront of developments. “It’s just too early for great commercial success, but that’s still to come.” BBLeap designs and builds nozzles that are mounted on existing agricultural machines and thus can provide a dosage at the plant level. “Not on the basis of the average, like existing machines work, but with a specific dosage that can be different for each area of 50 by 50 centimeters, or even 25 by 25.”

BBLeap’s Leapbox has up to 250 pulsating nozzles whose output can change up to forty times per second. The first application was built in close cooperation with the international leader in precision agriculture Jacob van den Borne from Reusel. He is already very enthusiastic about it, but Millenaar is still far from satisfied. “We always want more than the customer can imagine. Nor is it the case that we make our solutions on the basis of market demand. We try to imagine a situation that produces the best results. We’re not farmers, we can’t grow, we’re a technology company that can help farmers with solutions they haven’t yet thought of themselves.”