The company purpose statement says Leftfield Innovation aims for a better New Zealand through sustainable food production delivering higher nutrition and value.
No argument with that, let’s get on with it.
Founder Nick Pyke says much of the research work has been done and he needs farmers who share his vision so crops can be grown, agronomic challenges overcome and trust established between growers and processors.
Rather than circling the wagons around our livestock farmers should use some strong points of difference to build that better world, he says.
Our temperate climate, good soils, traceability, high quality and good farmers position this country for producing innovative, nutritious and tasty foods.
Speaking to the second ProteinTech conference in Auckland last month Pyke said we can’t compete in the mass production of grains and peas and shouldn’t try.
He cites hundreds of millions of dollars of investment into new pea fractioning plants in Canada, raising its capacity fivefold in four years.
“We shouldn’t bother to compete in fractioning any type of plant protein, really.”
Meatless burgers will quickly become cheap and ho-hum but NZ has a unique opportunity to put animal and plant products together in the same food types.
They will be new niche products with dependable flavours and sensory attributes, Pyke says.
They might incorporate our higher protein natives such as karaka berries, tawa and hinau, green leaves from kawakawa, seaweeds like karengo and huhu grubs.
Foods could be based on oats, blackcurrants, hemp, quinoa, dairy, sheep meats and venison, all of which we grow well and which have a good reputation.
We would specialise in infant formulas, sports recovery and repair, the needs of aged people and proteins for breakfast, as Fonterra is already doing.
Pyke thinks NZ has the right ingredients to be a world-leading, nutrition-based, beverage supplier.
Consumer insights must determine what NZ develops as plant proteins, he said.
We would then grow the right foods in the right places with the right motives and not have enforced differentiation between primary industries.
Water use in cropping and mixed farming would be less than with dairying under irrigation.
Pyke says NZ grows a huge amount of plant protein already, in ryegrass and lucerne, for example, and runs it through livestock before humans get to eat it.
“I am not saying we would use the best red meat cuts (for new products) but all the lesser value protein obtainable through rendering, perhaps.”
NZ also has good growing conditions for pulses and grains.
Pulses like fava beans, lupins, chick peas and lentils have high protein levels in the 20-40% range.
They do have agronomic challenges to raise consistent yields and combat diseases and pests.
“Our past work at FAR (the Foundation for Arable Research) was on growing them for animal feeds so we would need to select varieties for their nutritional characteristics.”
Pulses have a great deal going for them: no gluten, low fat, high in good fibre, low glycaemic index, high in iron, zinc, folate and the B vitamins, cholesterol-free, they fix nitrogen and the weeds can be controlled.
Grains have lower protein contents – in the 10-15% range – and offer complete proteins that contain the nine amino acids essential in the human diet.
Wheat, oats, quinoa, millet, spelt and buckwheat all have their challenges that skilled NZ farmers could overcome.
Pyke wants co-operation across scientific disciplines to bring the plant and animal proteins together in what would be uniquely NZ products.
Value has to be created throughout the supply chain so that those with the opportunity, skills and knowledge to grow different crops get sufficiently rewarded for doing so.
An example is Champion, NZ’s largest flour milling company owned in Japan, that has returned to processing NZ wheat, especially for the Countdown North Island in-store bakeries.
“We have redesigned the value chain to ensure enough buy-in from wheat farmers to view the crop quite differently.”
Leftfield is working with a group of like-minded growers to iron out the agronomy, establish the viability of new products and find processors and food manufacturers who want to go in a new direction by collaboration.
