Boosting UK food security with Alternative Proteins

• Convert animal feed cropland to growing vegetables for UK nutrition security

• Instead of growing feed for animals, we can grow pulses and legumes for alternative proteins

• The National Food Strategy has estimated that 10,000 factory roles and 6,500 farming jobs will be created through the alternative protein industry.

Animal feed is often made from lower quality crops, or in the case of soya, from cheap GM varieties not approved for human consumption in the UK.

• There is a lot of waste in the plant-based supply chain, combined with too many low-volume SKUs that cause huge inefficiencies.
• Short chilled shelf lives compound these problems, as do the complex supply chains of some plant-based protein and fat ingredients.

Fava beans

Humans consume around 1000 tonnes of fava beans annually in the UK, while livestock chomp through around 600,000 tonnes of the same crop. Fava bean related protein concentrates have only recently been developed but will be available to alternative protein manufactures soon.

The UK is already a huge producer of fava beans as they are used to fix nitrogen in between wheat harvests. As such it requires little change to agricultural land use. Low levels of processing and short shipping could make fava protein cost competitive with imported soy.