Three million tons of guar beans (also known as cluster beans) are processed annually to produce guar gum, a popular thickener, stabilizer, and emulsifier in packaged foods. But what happens to the protein-rich meal left over?
Today, it tends to go into low-value animal feed markets, say the founders of Colorado-based startup CoryPro Ingredients. Tomorrow, they claim, it could be the next big thing in plant protein for human consumption.
The benefits are clear, say CTO Roi Wurgaft, who has been working with plant proteins for over 25 years, and Robert Beausire, a food industry veteran specializing in selling and marketing protein ingredients.
First, guar meal is high in clean-tasting protein (55%), but just as importantly, there is already a high-value market for the primary ingredient in the beans, guar gum, so they don’t have to worry about monetizing that to make the economics of guar protein production add up. By contrast, for firms making ingredients from mung beans, peas, chickpeas and faba beans, the protein is the target ingredient, and the byproducts (starch and fibers) are not especially valuable.
Guar bean meal costs, meanwhile, are determined by the commodity price for defatted soybean meal, noted Beausire, who caught up with AgFunderNews at the Future Food-Tech summit in San Francisco last month.
“With these other plant proteins, if there is a drought in Canada or something like that, they get directly affected, and the price goes up. Guar survives well in dry conditions, but even if something impacts the crop, the price of guar gum goes up, but the price of the protein meal is still pegged to defatted soy meal, so it takes out some of the variability out of the market.”
Manufacturing and scale up
According to Beausire, “Significant amounts of guar meal, we estimate about 1.3 million tons, are produced every year, so that’s over 700,000 tons of protein. We’re still at a fairly early stage, but from what we’ve seen so far producing concentrates and isolates, we are getting a very clean, neutral flavor, which you don’t get with pea protein.
“Guar protein is also very easy to formulate with and is allergy-friendly, upcycled, non GMO, and sustainable as it grows in semi-arid regions with minimal inputs.”
For the next stage of its plan, CoryPro is looking to produce 600 tons or so a year of concentrate, and has a contract manufacturer identified, but is looking to secure $2 million to make this happen, secure self-affirmed GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) status in the US, and forge strategic relationships with customers, said Beausire.
“We’ve filed provisional patents around the protein extraction process, so it is a unique process, but not so wildly so that we can’t work with contract manufacturers.”
Guar production is concentrated in India, but it is also grown in smaller quantities in other countries including Pakistan, Mexico and the US (in Texas, where is it used in the fracking industry), he said.
“For a 600-tons-a-year guar protein facility, we’re looking at co-manufacturers in North America, and there’s enough korma [guar protein meal] produced here. But for a full-scale facility ideally we’d do that in India, although it doesn’t mean that we have to. A lot will depend on tariffs. We could import korma into the US and process it here as well, but when we get to that kind of size of a facility, we’re hoping we’ll have a strategic partner by that time that is used to working in India.”
Applications
CoryPro is looking to commercialize two products: a guar protein concentrate with a “clean, light flavor, smooth texture in beverages and producing meat like texture when extruded,” and a highly soluble guar protein isolate suitable for high protein beverages, nutrition bars, and plant-based dairy products.
The “quick and easy” initial market would be ready-to-mix protein powders, he said. “Our flavor profile is such that there’s a real benefit for those, where people are adding pea and it [negatively] impacts flavor. But we also see potential in nutrition bars, plant-based meat, plant-based crisps, and protein cereals.”
While food companies have been pitched every kind of protein under the sun in recent years, each promising superior functionality and a cleaner flavor, guar protein can potentially deliver both, but more affordably, he argued.
“It’s got the higher protein content, and also it’s a byproduct, so pricing is actually heavily influenced by the defatted soy market, so it’s a little bit more expensive than that, but only because it’s got more protein. So that gives you quite stable and low pricing. When you look at pea, fava, and chickpea, they’re only 20-25% protein. So for every 100 pounds of product, you’ve got 75 pounds of stuff to get rid of, and that’s a challenge we don’t have.”
