Burcon NutraScience Corporation (TSX: BU) (“Burcon” or the “Company”), a leader in developing functionally and nutritionally valuable plant-proteins, announced its new pea-protein and canola-protein blends: Nutratein-PS™ and Nutratein-TZ™.
Burcon’s novel canola and pea proteins, when combined, create unique, unparalleled plant-protein blends, with functional characteristics, low allergenicity, and a nutritional value exceeding those of the standard pea proteins available on the market today.
“Burcon’s novel and proprietary pea and canola proteins have exciting applications in numerous food and beverage products,” said Johann F. Tergesen, Burcon’s president and chief executive officer, adding, “The ability to blend Burcon’s unique pea and canola proteins to create nutritionally unparalleled plant protein combinations in our Nutratein product family, while preserving the highly desirable functional properties the proteins naturally possess, will give us a true competitive advantage, marking a key pillar of our leadership strategy in the rapidly growing plant protein market worldwide.”
Pea is a good source of protein; however, the nutritional value of pea protein falls below the gold standard of animal protein such as dairy protein or egg protein. Pea protein’s nutritional value is limited by its low level of the amino acids methionine and cysteine; in contrast, Burcon’s canola protein is uniquely rich in these same amino acids. By blending Burcon’s pea and canola proteins together, Burcon can offer plant protein ingredients with a nutritional value equalling or exceeding that of animal proteins like dairy or egg.
The combination of their functional and nutritional properties makes Burcon’s canola proteins ideally suited for use in a wide assortment of food and beverage applications. Burcon extracts and purifies two distinctly different canola protein fractions branded under the trade names Puratein® and Supertein®, both of which have pre-market approval for human consumption through the GRAS Notification program of the US Food and Drug Administration (“US-FDA”).
Nutratein® PDCAAS Scores Equivalent to Animal Protein
The method accepted by the U.S. FDA, FAO and WHO for evaluating the nutritional quality of a protein is referred to as the PDCAAS score, or the protein digestibility corrected amino acid score, with the highest possible score being a 1.0. The protein in cow’s milk and the protein in eggs are examples of proteins with a PDCAAS of 1.0. Peas have a PDCAAS score of less than 0.8, however, Burcon’s blends of pea and canola protein have PDCAAS scores of 1.0, equaling the gold standard of dairy protein.
With the enormous growth in consumer demand for dairy-alternative beverages, such as almond milk or cashew milk, the industry has now come to the realization that unlike dairy milk, these alternative beverages are deficient in protein and nutritionally inferior as alternatives. Adding soy protein to these beverages is not an option, as that would effectively make these products soy milk. Burcon’s Peazazz® pea protein, with its clean flavour and exceptional solubility is an ideal protein fortifier for use in these dairy-alternative products. An even better solution to the problem, however, is a blend of Burcon’s Peazazz® pea protein and Supertein® canola protein, which provides not only the clean flavour and exceptional solubility of Peazazz® on its own, but also brings an unparalleled nutritional value for a non-dairy, and non-soy-protein milk alternative.
