Burcon NutraScience (TSX: BU) develops plant proteins and ingredients for use in the food and beverage industries in Canada. The company’s products include Clarisoy, Peazazz, Supertein and Puratein. Burcon was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.
The company delivers several healthy products. Clarisoy is a soy protein used in sports nutrition beverages, dairy alternative yogurts, powdered beverage mixes, coffee creamers, and other nutritional products. Peazazz is a pea protein for dairy alternative products, such as protein bars, weight management and meal replacement products. Supertein is a canola protein isolate used in beverages, aerated desserts, and protein bars. Puratein is a canola protein isolate used in baked goods, sauces, and meat substitutes.
Expanding global protein market
Burcon’s technologies allow it to extract and purify canola proteins from canola meal, a co-product of the canola seed crushing industry. The goal of Burcon’s research is to develop the company’s patented and patent-pending processes to use inexpensive oil seed meals, such as canola meal, for the production of purified plant proteins that exhibit nutritional, functional or nutraceutical profiles.
Over time, Burcon expects that the company’s canola protein will participate and compete with soy, dairy, and egg proteins in the expanding global protein ingredient market, with potential uses in meat substitutes, dairy alternative beverages, prepared foods, nutritional supplements and personal care products. Burcon’s pea protein products can also be combined with Burcon’s canola protein products to provide proprietary protein blend products with excellent functional attributes and added nutritional value.
Versatile technology
Individual pea and canola protein are limited in the content of certain essential amino acids. However, the amino acid profiles of the pea and canola protein products are complementary, that is, the canola proteins are rich in essential amino acids that are limited in the pea proteins and the pea proteins are rich in essential amino acids that are limiting in the canola protein. The resulting blends, marketed as Nutratein blend products, are proprietary plant protein products providing improved protein nutrition.
Burcon’s extraction and purification technologies can also be used to produce specialty proteins such as flax and hemp proteins. Burcon’s core extraction and purification technology is versatile and can be adapted to process a range of oilseed and non-oilseed meals to produce high-value protein products for use in the food and beverage industries.
The demand for plant proteins in the protein market continues to grow and as such, there may be niche market opportunities for the company’s specialty protein ingredients. Burcon plans to explore these opportunities in the near future.
Expansion of production capacity
For fiscal 2021, Burcon plans to expand the production capacity of facilities to produce sample products in sufficient amounts for major food and beverage companies to conduct product development trials and limited product launches. The company also plans to further strengthen and expand Burcon’s core intellectual property portfolio.
The company is also pursuing product development agreements with major food, beverage and nutritional product companies to develop improved or novel applications for Burcon’s other specialty proteins. This could be a very lucrative opportunity for Burcon.
