Contract research organisation NIZO has officially opened its Sustainable Protein Innovation & Test Centre (SPRINT) in Ede, the Netherlands.
The construction of the facility was a two-year project, involving a €5 million investment from NIZO along with further funding from The East Netherlands Development Agency (Oost NL) and the EU. The centre aims to address the challenges of sustainable food production, aiding in the transition from animal-based to plant-based and microbial proteins.
Though NIZO already had a pilot plant for food research, it was mainly focused on processing milk and other liquids. After witnessing the increased interest in alternative protein research, the organisation decided to extend its existing facility with the aim of helping companies producing meat and dairy alternatives to scale up.
SPRINT is described as “the one and only combination of expertise and food-grade scaling-up facilities for dairy and meat analogues without compromise”. The centre has equipment for protein extraction and purification, spray drying, sensory analysis, and more.
Meeting demands for food-grade facilities
NIZO works in close collaboration with other parties in the Netherlands’ food research ecosystem, including Food Valley and WUR (Wageningen University and Research). Food Valley has seen a significant increase in sustainable protein facilities in recent years, with ADM and Marel announcing last year that they would be opening an alt protein R&D centre in the region. Kalsec also opened its Savoury Product Innovation Centre of Excellence in Food Valley last November.
“In recent years, various start-ups, scale-ups, and SMEs have developed technologies on a lab scale for sustainable ingredients for use in food,” says NIZO. “However, they lack food-grade testing and scale-up facilities and rely on accessible, affordable, and food-grade third-party facilities. These are not sufficiently available in the region. The SPRINT project addresses the challenges of sustainable food production and meets the growing demands of food companies for food-grade scale facilities.”
