Reaching milestones quicker by working together

Collaboration leads to acceleration—of innovation, of scale-up and of the commercialization of new plant-based foods and ingredients. In January 2020, Merit Functional Foods, Pitura Seeds and TWC Nutrition embarked on a partnership to develop new pea, canola and pea-canola blended protein ingredients. The project has been a success, with the partners reaching their final milestone this past summer.

While there’s plenty of factors the partners say go into this success, all agree that they wouldn’t have advanced to where they are today as quickly if they hadn’t had the opportunity to build off of each others’ skills and expertise.

“Throughout the process, Merit was fortunate to work closely with our collaborative consortium partners, [including] Pitura on the supply chain side to develop cleaning standards that have helped us create high quality protein ingredients,” Merit Functional Foods Vice President of Marketing Tara Kozlowich said. “TWC Nutrition has provided Merit with industry knowledge and confirming how our non-GMO pea and canola protein function in plant-based products.”

Tom Greaves, President of Pitura Seeds, agreed with this sentiment, adding that part of the reason the project saw the success it did was because of the diversity of the partners.

“It’s incredible to see what can be accomplished when you bring partners together from across the supply chain,” he said. “I want to thank Protein Industries Canada for creating a structure and environment for success.”

The protein ingredients developed through the project have since reached commercialization, and are being tested in several new plant-based food and beverage products that will soon reach grocery shelves across Canada and international markets. This includes through two new Protein Industries Canada co-investment projects: one with TWC Nutrition, Daiya Foods and Grand River Foods, and the other with Wamame Foods, Wismettac Asian Foods and Winecrush Technology.

This ability to build off of one project to create others proves the versatility of these Canadian ingredients. Additionally, partners involved are seeing significant benefits to their operations, as proven by TWC Nutrition’s participation in a second co-investment project with Merit Functional Foods.

Charity Scantlebury, Director of Marketing and Creative at TWC Nutrition, explained that the company’s role in the first project was largely to help determine how well the new ingredients functioned in plant-based foods. While this helped in the development of the ingredients, it also led to scale-up benefits for each of the companies.

“Through our partnership, TWC Nutrition assessed the functionality of Merit’s protein and provided feedback,” she said. “The project provided an opportunity to collaborate and support the growth of local companies.”

Kozlowich agreed, stating that Merit Functional Foods also experienced growth throughout the project—and at a pace that exceeded what they would have seen had they worked alone. Not only was the company able to build their 94,000-square-foot facility within the project’s timeframe, it also reached commercialization and doubled their team size to more than 100 people.

“We thank Protein Industries Canada for their ongoing support – it has been an exciting time for Merit as we entered new territory and we continue to be excited about the vast amount of opportunities in the plant protein space,” Kozlowich said.

While this project held plenty of opportunity for each Merit Functional Foods, Pitura Seeds and TWC Nutrition, so, too, do their future endeavours. And Canadian consumers can look forward to enjoying the results along with them.