Food

Processing, such as milling to flour, or protein extraction is relatively undeveloped and there are barriers both within the existing trade and in the new markets facing entrepreneurs, ranging from the lack of investment funds to issues concerning by-products, scalability, and regional processing capacity.

The Food Transition Network aims to provide support to existing and developing value-chains in their efforts to make attractive, convenient and nutritious legume-based food products. The network examines legumes as food, processed and unprocessed, and is addressing factors that are blocking or facilitating their increased consumption and production. The network is sharing experiences and knowledge on a wide range of topics such as processing legumes to make palatable food products, the environmental and health benefits of eating legumes, and other issues emerging from value-chain actors.

The overall goal of the Food Transition Network is to create a healthy and diverse legume economy for Europe, leading to the harnessing of all the beneficial ecosystem services that legumes can provide. Over the course of this project, the network expects to promote deeper collaboration between value chain actors to address bottlenecks and common challenges within actor groups.