Puratos and Shiru join forces to create plant-based protein ingredients for baked goods

The Belgium-based company said the goal of the collaboration with Shiru is to find new functional, plant-based ingredients that can bring innovation to bakery, patisserie, and chocolate products, while improving sustainability and nutritional values without sacrificing taste.

“Puratos already offers a full range of plant-based solutions that enable the removal of dairy, eggs and butter with taste, texture and functionality as close as possible to the traditional counterpart​,” said Paul Baisier, Chief R&D Officer at Puratos.

“What is most important is that we have unequivocal evidence showing that these plant-based alternatives are significantly better for the planet. Life-cycle assessment of the environmental footprint of these products concludes that the impact of our plant-based egg-wash alternative, Sunset Glaze, on the planet is 59% lower than pasteurized eggs, while the impact of our plant-based butter alternative, Mimetic, is three times lower than dairy butter. ​

“Together with Shiru, we will be able to accelerate our plant-based product innovation pipeline for the benefit of our customers and consumers.”​

The partnership complements the existing product innovation strategy of Puratos that focuses on bringing disruptive solutions that improve consumers’ health & wellbeing that underlines the company’s deep-rooted commitment to future generations.

“With the large market opportunity the baking industry presents us, partnering with Puratos was a natural fit in developing our functional protein ingredients​,” said Jasmin Hume, Shiru CEO and founder. “Puratos is a global leader in the industry, and by working together, we have the chance to make a major impact towards a more sustainable food system​.”

Shiru’s discovery platform Flouris uses bioinformatics and machine learning to search through hundreds of millions of naturally-occurring proteins to identify promising candidates that match a specific desired food function -  in this case, for use as ingredient(s) in baked goods.

Using precision fermentation and high-throughput screening techniques, Shiru then produces these proteins in their lab and evaluates their performance as ingredients. The end result is an ingredient that can be produced sustainably at scale by Puratos to bring brand-new functionalities or to replace an animal-based product, without sacrificing taste or nutrition.