"Burcon's novel and proprietary pea and canola proteins have exciting applications in numerous food and beverage products," said Johann F. Tergesen, Burcon's president and chief executive officer, adding, "The ability to blend Burcon's unique pea and canola proteins to create nutritionally unparalleled plant protein combinations in our Nutratein product family, while preserving the highly desirable functional properties the proteins naturally possess, will give us a true competitive advantage, marking a key pillar of our leadership strategy in the rapidly growing plant protein market worldwide."
Nutratein® Product Family of Pea + Canola Protein Blends
Burcon's blend of its proprietary Peazazz® pea protein and Supertein® canola protein, branded as Nutratein-PS™, with its clean flavour and high solubility, is the perfect protein blend for fortifying dairy-alternative beverages such as almond milk, or to formulate a standalone beverage with a nutritional value consistent with the gold standard of cow's milk.
Burcon's blend of Peazac™ pea protein and Puratein® canola protein, branded as Nutratein-TZ™, has functional properties making it ideally suited in the formulation of plant-based meat products such as veggie-burgers, or veggie-sausages and with a PDCAAS which actually exceeds that of beef. Both Nutratein proteins are over 90% pure protein.
Pea Protein
Field peas offer important advantages to consumers, and to farmers as their production is environmentally friendly while being a great source of protein, with numerous applications in dairy-free foods, vegetarian foods, meat analogues, sports and slimming foods, seniors nutrition and clinical nutrition products. Burcon's Peazazz® pea protein has exceptionally clean flavour characteristics and is well-suited for use in beverages, dairy alternative products, meal replacements and meat analogues, as well as a variety of other healthy and great-tasting food and beverage product applications.
Pea is a good source of protein; however, the nutritional value of pea protein falls below the gold standard of animal protein such as dairy protein or egg protein. Pea protein's nutritional value is limited by its low level of the amino acids methionine and cysteine; in contrast, Burcon's canola protein is uniquely rich in these same amino acids. By blending Burcon's pea and canola proteins together, Burcon can offer plant protein ingredients with a nutritional value equalling or exceeding that of animal proteins like dairy or egg.
Canola Protein
Canola is one of the world's most important oilseed crops, grown for its highly prized oil, with heart-healthy properties and renowned culinary qualities. Up until now, after pressing the valuable oil from canola, the residual meal has predominantly been sold as animal feed. Burcon's innovative technology unlocks the protein from canola meal for human consumption in the form of highly purified protein ingredients with exceptional functional properties and unique nutritional value.
The combination of their functional and nutritional properties makes Burcon's canola proteins ideally suited for use in a wide assortment of food and beverage applications. Burcon extracts and purifies two distinctly different canola protein fractions branded under the trade names Puratein® and Supertein®, both of which have pre-market approval for human consumption through the GRAS Notification program of the US Food and Drug Administration ("US-FDA").
Nutratein® PDCAAS Scores Equivalent to Animal Protein
The method accepted by the U.S. FDA, FAO and WHO for evaluating the nutritional quality of a protein is referred to as the PDCAAS score, or the protein digestibility corrected amino acid score, with the highest possible score being a 1.0. The protein in cow's milk and the protein in eggs are examples of proteins with a PDCAAS of 1.0. Peas have a PDCAAS score of less than 0.8, however, Burcon's blends of pea and canola protein have PDCAAS scores of 1.0, equaling the gold standard of dairy protein.
With the enormous growth in consumer demand for dairy-alternative beverages, such as almond milk or cashew milk, the industry has now come to the realization that unlike dairy milk, these alternative beverages are deficient in protein and nutritionally inferior as alternatives. Adding soy protein to these beverages is not an option, as that would effectively make these products soy milk. Burcon's Peazazz® pea protein, with its clean flavour and exceptional solubility is an ideal protein fortifier for use in these dairy-alternative products. An even better solution to the problem, however, is a blend of Burcon's Peazazz® pea protein and Supertein® canola protein, which provides not only the clean flavour and exceptional solubility of Peazazz® on its own, but also brings an unparalleled nutritional value for a non-dairy, and non-soy-protein milk alternative.
About Burcon NutraScience Corporation
Burcon is a leader in developing functionally and nutritionally valuable plant proteins. The company has developed an extensive portfolio of composition, application, and process patents originating from a core protein extraction and purification technology. Burcon's CLARISOY® soy protein - under license to the Archer Daniels Midland Company - offers clarity and high-quality protein nutrition for low-pH beverage systems and excellent solubility and exceptionally clean flavor at any pH; Peazazz® is a uniquely soluble and clean-tasting pea protein; and Puratein®, Supertein® and Nutratein® are canola protein isolates with unique functionality and valuable nutritional profiles. For more information about the company, visit www.burcon.ca.
The TSX has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy of the content of the information contained herein. This press release contains forward-looking statements or forward-looking information within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements or forward-looking information involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results, performances, prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Forward- looking statements or forward-looking information can be identified by words such as "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "goal," "project," "estimate," "expect," "believe", "future," "likely," "may," "should," "could", "will" and similar references to future periods. All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this release are forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements regarding expectations, intentions and plans contained in this press release. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements or information. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from Burcon's plans and expectations include the actual results of business negotiations, marketing activities, adverse general economic, market or business conditions, regulatory changes and other risks and factors detailed herein and from time to time in the filings made by Burcon with securities regulators and stock exchanges, including in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in Burcon's annual information form dated June 18, 2018 filed with the Canadian securities administrators on www.sedar.com. Any forward-looking statement or information only speaks as of the date on which it was made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, Burcon disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Although Burcon believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and accordingly, investors should not rely on such statements.
CLARISOY is a trademark of Archer Daniels Midland Company.
Media & Industry Contact:
Paul Lam
Manager, Business Development
Burcon NutraScience Corporation
Tel (604) 733-0896, Toll-free (888) 408-7960
plam@burcon.ca www.burcon.ca
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