10073775SusProFood: Optimising development of SUStainable functional fibre-rich FOODs fortified with plant PROteins.ClosedCollaborative R&DInnovate UKThe global market for plant-based foods with considerably low greenhouse gas emissions is expected to increase considerably to £13 billion by 2027\. This is largely fuelled by the growing public awareness for environmental sustainability and the contribution of food production to the climate crisis, food related health concerns associated with red meat consumption, animal welfare considerations and rise in veganism, flexitarian diets and an increasingly "health aware" consumer. There is thus an immense interest within food industries to incorporate sustainable plant proteins into their fibre-rich convenience foods such as smoothies, breakfast pots, soups, gravies in order to improve the wellness of these regularly consumed accessible products. This includes providing them with "fuller for longer" benefits and health functionality, especially in terms of gut health and cardio-metabolic health, as well as fulfilling the ambitions to reach Net Zero targets by 2050\. However, addition of plant proteins comes with severe technological challenges of unacceptable "dry", "non-juicy" mouthfeel that are failing to meet consumer expectations and remain a major obstacle for adoption of plant-based foods. In addition, the added plant proteins may interact and bind with fibres, which might reduce the inherent beneficial gut function effects of the fibre. This feasibility project SusProFood combining complementary strengths of academia and industry aims to optimise and validate a ground breaking technology involving process-induced physical modification of plant proteins without using any chemical additive, conferring outstanding lubricity and hydration properties to plant proteins. Due to such physical modification, this limits plant proteins binding to fibres thus synergistically allowing the colonic fermentation of dietary fibres by gut bacteria effectively, supporting the inherent metabolic benefits of consuming high fibre-rich foods and providing the necessary health benefits. Together with industrial partners (SPG Innovation, SME and Innocent Drinks, large company), will optimize and validate the modification of currently used in-process variables without adding any new energy-intensive resources. The performance of the new eco-friendly formulation and processing of plant protein-rich fibrous foods developed in developmental kitchens to large pilot scale across multiple food formats will be tested using uniquely designed instrumental toolkits, human sensory trials and consumer studies to quantify improved mouthfeel and nutritional benefits. Our project will generate new formulation and processing routes to revolutionize the creation of next generation of pleasurable, plant protein-fortified fibre rich foods that are vital for a healthy population and contribute to a sustainable one health planet to achieve the ambition of Net Zero.