Like it or not being able to offer your product as suitable for vegetarians can open up the market for a wider appeal. It also allows you to consider product extyensions in life style and weight management products. You are going mainstream . Maybe not quite bread but when did you see bread being sold without vegetarian claim?
There are some countries, like India, where having a vegetarian claim will go down very well.
Problems. Whey is animal derived but a lot of people do accept it as OK as vegetarian. However see our previous blog on pea+rice. Plant proteins are a good source and if herds of buffalo and wildebeest can get protein pout of plants then there is plenty of protein to go round.
Problem. Amino Acids. Today a lot of amino acids are made by fermentation or synthetically from oil ( glycine and taurine). A lot are from extraction from duck and chicken feathers especially cysteine and the BCAA. Of course most aminos can be made by fermentation and with advances in the speeding up of gene sequencing the correct bacteria and enzymes can be engineered to produce the desired amino acid. This is still not easy and in the case of cysteine the bio-engineering is very tricky ( call me if you need the technology!) and expensive. It is now easier for BCAA and Japan leads the way.
Leucine. We are now able to supply fermentation grade leucine at better prices due to new engineering and production. We can also supply fermentation grades for iso-leucine and valine. This means BCAA blends and instant will be available for 2013 where all aminos are fermented.
I look forward to your enquiries