Europe’s transition towards more sustainable food systems depends on more than developing new plant-based products. Behind every successful ingredient or innovative food product lies an entire value chain that must work efficiently-from the field where crops are grown to the consumer’s plate.
While plant proteins have enormous potential to improve food security, reduce environmental impacts, and create new market opportunities, the sector still faces significant challenges. Fragmented supply chains, limited processing infrastructure, climate uncertainty, and weak connections between different actors often prevent promising innovations from reaching commercial scale.
This is exactly where VALPRO Path’s Innovation Production Systems (IPSs) come in.
Rather than focusing on isolated technological solutions, the project develops and validates integrated Innovation Production Systems that connect farmers, processors, researchers, businesses, and consumers into resilient, practical, and economically viable plant protein value chains.
Innovation Production Systems: Turning Ideas into Real-World Solutions
An Innovation Production System (IPS) is much more than a research concept. It combines innovative farming practices, processing technologies, business models, and food applications into complete production systems that can be tested under real-life conditions.
Within VALPRO Path, each IPS addresses a different challenge along the plant protein value chain while contributing to the same overarching goal: making European plant protein production more sustainable, resilient, and economically attractive.
Instead of treating farming, processing, and product development as separate activities, the IPS approach demonstrates how these elements can work together as one connected system.
Bringing Processing Closer to the Farm
One of the key Innovation Production Systems focuses on short supply chains.
Traditionally, farmers sell raw crops that travel through multiple intermediaries before becoming food products. This often limits the value retained at farm level and increases transportation and processing costs.
VALPRO Path explores a different approach by enabling farmers and local producers to perform part of the processing themselves, creating higher-value products closer to where crops are grown.
Practical examples include:
- transforming lentils and chickpeas into plant-based burgers directly at farm level;
- developing European peanut value chains capable of producing peanut milk, peanut butter, and peanut oil;
- valorising side streams such as peanut shells for additional feed applications and bio-based materials.
These business cases demonstrate how local processing can strengthen rural economies while shortening supply chains and improving resource efficiency.
Closing Europe’s Processing Gap
Another major obstacle to Europe’s protein transition is the lack of suitable processing infrastructure.
Much of the existing infrastructure has historically been designed for producing animal feed rather than ingredients intended for human consumption. As demand for plant-based foods grows, new processing solutions are needed to bridge this gap.
One of VALPRO Path’s Innovation Production Systems addresses this challenge by evaluating innovative processing technologies that can operate closer to production sites.
Among these is dry fractionation, a technology that separates valuable protein-rich fractions while requiring significantly less water, fewer chemicals, and lower energy consumption than conventional wet processing methods.
These more sustainable processing pathways make it possible to produce ingredients such as legume flours and protein concentrates suitable for food applications including pasta, bakery products, and other plant-based foods.
Improving Resilience Through Smarter Farming
Innovation also starts in the field.
Climate variability increasingly affects crop yields, making reliable raw material production one of the biggest challenges for future plant protein value chains.
VALPRO Path addresses this through another Innovation Production System focused on intercropping, the practice of growing multiple crops side by side.
For example, combining peas with faba beans helps reduce lodging, a phenomenon where pea plants bend or collapse under strong winds, leading to significant yield losses.
By improving crop stability and resilience, intercropping contributes to more reliable harvests and creates a stronger foundation for the rest of the supply chain.
The project is also developing a varietal selection tool that helps identify which crop varieties perform best under specific climatic conditions, supporting more informed farming decisions across Europe.
From Crops to Consumer Products
Innovation only creates impact when consumers embrace the final products.
This is why several Innovation Production Systems focus on developing appealing food applications using the ingredients produced throughout the project.
Researchers are testing partial substitution of wheat flour with pea and faba bean flour in familiar bakery products such as cookies, waffles, and soda bread. By maintaining taste, texture, shelf life, and manufacturing efficiency, these products demonstrate how plant proteins can be integrated into everyday foods without requiring major changes in existing production facilities.
Other applications developed within VALPRO Path include:
- legume-based pasta,
- plant-based beverages,
- protein bars,
- veggie burgers,
- peanut-derived food products.
These innovations show how improvements at every stage of the value chain ultimately translate into greater consumer choice.
Optimising the Entire Value Chain
Building sustainable plant protein systems requires more than individual innovations-it requires understanding how every part of the supply chain interacts.
Within VALPRO Path, advanced optimisation models help researchers evaluate different supply chain configurations under real-world conditions.
These models consider factors such as:
- production costs,
- greenhouse gas emissions,
- water and energy use,
- climate variability,
- consumer demand,
- processing infrastructure,
- logistics.
By combining technical, environmental, and economic considerations, the project identifies the most efficient pathways for scaling up European plant protein production while supporting both competitiveness and sustainability.
Building the Future of Plant Proteins
Europe’s protein transition will not be achieved through a single technological breakthrough.
It will require connected systems that bring together innovation in agriculture, processing, logistics, business models, and food production.
VALPRO Path’s Innovation Production Systems demonstrate exactly this integrated approach. By testing solutions in real operating environments and connecting every step of the value chain, from farm to plate, the project is laying the foundation for stronger, more resilient, and more sustainable plant protein ecosystems across Europe.
For a deeper conversation on the role of innovation, collaboration, and value chain transformation in accelerating Europe’s plant protein transition, listen to the VALPRO Path podcast episode here:
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