Demand is increasing for sustainably-grown protein sources for human nutrition. Fava bean is a grain legume which is well-adapted to Northern Europe and is relatively cheap to grow. Two million tonnes are currently produced across the EU-28, particularly in the UK and Northern France. However, it mainly grown for animal feed, and the crop remains an under-utilised source of dietary protein and fibre in Europe. Furthermore, the crop has shown variability in terms of yield, resulting in a lower attractiveness for farmers.

Favuleux will explore the supply chain required to develop fava beans as a sustainable source of dietary protein. A diverse collection of beans will be grown in field trials and evaluated for characters including sustainable productivity, nutrition, and processing quality and efficiency. The project will develop an economically viable and environmentally sustainable pipeline for producing superior healthy food products from fava bean.

CIM will provide expertise in supply chain evaluation and modelling; the research team will implement supply chain mapping of the fava bean production pipeline and identify KPIs for defining future resource, energy and waste requirements. The feasibility of exploiting fava bean as an economically and environmentally sustainable source of protein for human consumption will be assessed.

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