Project PI: Dott.ssa Francesca Giampieri, Università Politecnica delle Marche

Project Partner

Design Group Italia (DGI)
A renowned international and multidisciplinary design studio that supports companies in their processes of product, brand or service innovation. Within the project, DGI will take a leading role in identify opportunities, defining the product proposition and building the new brand under which the product could be marketed.

Delta Team (DTM)
DTM is a food technology micro-consultancy with about 20 years of history. Its services to the food industry encompass product and process development, the selection of raw materials for new products to be launched, and the realization of food and packaging innovation projects. Leveraging its well-established expertise and extensive experience in research and development, the company will take a leading role in the ProLegOmen R&D activities in collaboration with Macè.

Trusticert (TCT)
A small consultancy providing companies with regulatory support for the compliance of food, cosmetics and innovative products. TCT will provide regulatory and legal assessment of product health and sustainability claims to be communicated on the packaging and other channels. It will design a system to certify and share some sustainability claims linked to the production process through the blockchain technology.

Budget e dates of the project

Total budget of the project: 799.977,38 €
Project start-end date: 31/07/2024 – 30/09/2025

Summary of the project

Legumes are a healthy and sustainable source of protein. Encouraging people to increase their consumption, at the expense of animal-based foods, is a way to reduce the negative impact of the food system on the planet and to address both malnutrition from excess and from deficiency in our society, including vulnerable categories such as seniors. Indeed, older people are at particular risk of malnutrition, especially, when admitted in hospital; the most common feature of malnutrition in elderly people is protein-intake related malnutrition, and in this context, oral nutritional supplements can be offered as a valid tool to integrate dietary modification. The main problem is that legumes are not among consumers’ top preferences. The challenge, therefore, is to present them in new forms that can provide a rich, satisfying experience in line with consumers’ lifestyles. The ProLegOmen project takes on this challenge and aims to explore the fermentation of legumes such as fava beans, chickpeas, cicerchia, lentils, and cannellini beans to develop a range of postbiotic functional products with organoleptic properties like those of dairy products, while keeping them minimally processed and with a very short label. Running parallel to R&D activities, the ProLegOmen partners will engage in two main streams of activities:
1) the research stream, aiming to verify the nutritional benefits of a fermented legume substrate through in vitro on C2C12 cells and in vivo preclinical studies performed on Caenorhabditis elegans and on elderly people admitted to a geriatric ward
2) the marketing stream, aiming to define the value proposition to be tested in the market. By coordinating these streams from the early stages of development, the product will have a better chance of establishing itself as a desirable option for European consumers, increasing the positive impact of ONFOODS Spoke 6 project.

Expected results

The main results of ProLegOmen are to promote the production and consumption of legumes in the Italian market by introducing products that contribute to building awareness that their beneficial properties can have a positive impact on the food system, both in nutritional and sustainability terms. Much depends on the ability of these products to be noticed by consumers and perceived as desirable alternatives to animal-based products. Therefore, the goal of ProLegOmen is to develop a product based on fermented legumes that excels in both nutritional and organoleptic aspects, and to define the most appropriate marketing mix to foster its commercial success. Our aim is to create a comprehensive package of services, including R&D, scientific validation, branding, and a go-to-market strategy, with the intention of persuading an Italian food company to invest in the production and marketing of this product. This will lead to increase the legume consumption among the Italian population and, more specifically, within two vulnerable categories: individuals over 65 and children aged 4 to 12.