“Pulses are really starting to play in the snack space”/
The trends driving consumption in Australia

Kathy on…getting into pulses

I'm a dietician and marketer but spent most of my career as a nutritionist in the food industry before joining the GLNC. I worked for Kraft-Heinz in various locations around the world, which was how I developed my love of pulses – I was drawn in by the humble baked bean!

A large chunk of my work was in the innovation center for Kraft-Heinz in Nijmegen where much of the work we did was innovating beans into different formats. When plant-based eating and sustainability came on trend I began looking after their sustainability program, but from a nutrition perspective. We were looking to drive innovation, particularly around pulses and generally how we make more sustainable food.

…the work of the GLNC

We are a health promotion non-profit that works across the whole supply chain – from farmer to retailer. We're mostly funded by the food industry and tend to work with anyone who uses pulses or grains. We try to look at evidence-based research with a view to promoting more grains and legumes in people's diets.

There’s a couple of important boxes we tick: firstly, we have to look at different complementary proteins for feeding the future. Pulses are a nutritional powerhouse – a tiny little bean that not only provides protein, but fiber and micronutrients, which is why we need to perform research to help ensure it is able to help feed future populations.

Then we look at things from a sustainability perspective – planetary health, farming practices, how we grow and how we keep the land moving forward for the next generations of crops. The GLNC influences farmers right through to food companies, so we do a lot of category audits that take snapshots of a moment in time to reveal categories in depth, then show food companies where their products may be lacking or what opportunities there are to improve the profile of their product.

We might not always deal directly with companies that produce pulses, sometimes they may produce rice, pasta, or grain-based products, but they can potentially boost their nutritional profile by adding a little bit of pulse flour, for example. We also work a lot with healthcare professionals to educate them on the importance of pulses.

…GLNC successes 

One of our achievements has been persuading food companies of the benefits of using whole pulses rather than isolates – this gives products a better nutritional profile.

Another big lens of the work we're doing is in the eating patterns. We're starting to see food-based dietary guidelines shifting towards plant-based focuses, especially countries like the Nordics, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, which are all shifting to plant protein sources that are mostly pulses. A big piece of work we have right now is to review dietary guidelines and provide enough evidence to support similar movements in Australia.

…the prevalence of plant-based foods in Australia 

Statistics in Australia are similar to those in the UK and Europe – one in three are reducing their meat intake and 20% of those are classing themselves as flexitarian. As a nutritionist I would love to think people are doing this for health or animal welfare/sustainability reasons, but I would say the number one driver of pulse consumption is the cost of living, and will continue to be for years to come.

We're starting to see more and more people relying on food banks and various feeding programs, and people are asking us how to use legumes to create not just traditional plant-based recipes, like a daal or chickpea curry, but things like Bolognese and more adapted recipes. The area where pulses are going to see a boom is in people looking to extend their meals and get more value for their dollar – families making their animal protein source go further. In my view, this will be one of the drivers of pulse consumption in the Western world.

Institutional feeding is another area I think is really underutilized, which is something the GLNC is starting to investigate.

…the kind of institutions pulse consumption could grow in

Aged care, hospitals, and even prisons – a lot of their menus are light on pulses. I think one of the biggest challenges we face in healthcare and aged care is malnutrition, which costs Australia $9 billion every year. 

When we think of pulses as a protein source, it provides an opportunity to get pulses on menus in various formats – milk, powdered flour – whatever could give meals a protein boost. It's definitely an untapped market here in Australia.

Nursing homes and hospitals are always looking at the cost of feeding a patient per day and when you compare pulses and animals as a protein source, you get a very significant cost difference and a great source of protein, fiber, and the micronutrients in the pulses. We don't need to replace one thing with the other, but it's a great way to create an affordable source of nutrition and must be considered.

…lupin beans as a potential powerhouse of plant-based

I was recently in Western Australia, where more lupins are grown than anywhere else in the world. Farmers have asked me: “What are we going to do with all these lupins? We’re just feeding them to cattle."

Food companies tell me lupins are an allergen and they don't want to use them for that reason. Personally, I think that's a cop out – they deal with so many allergens already, so I think the issue with lupin is their texture and bitterness. To that end we have groups in Australia such as Wide-Open Agriculture, who are doing a lot of work to unlock and deal with that bitterness. I honestly feel lupins are a big solution for feeding the future, as from a nutritional and environmental perspective they have the best outcomes for the health of our planet and people.

People send me products all the time that use lupins, and unfortunately most of them are just in breakfast cereals and you need to soak them at least a day before consuming them. To me, this just shows we need to be investing a lot more in research and processing of lupins.

…the GLNC’s work with farmers 

I sit on the Australian Pulse Council and am the only person on the Council that isn’t a farmer, breeder, or a researcher. This makes me the only link to the consumer, and I believe it’s a really important role. Farmers will only grow what sells, and I'm the one who talks to the global and Australian consumers – this means I can link food trends with what farmers are growing, and explain market drivers to farmers and advise on which products are going to grow next.

For example, I think faba beans are an ingredient that is going to be super exciting moving forward – we have a few things to unlock about anti-nutrients and a few other bits and pieces, but there is a big opportunity there and I make sure to keep the farmers connected to wherever the market is shifting. At the moment I'm pushing everyone on chickpeas because chickpeas are on trend in so many countries around the world.

…the pulse-based consumer products that will be important in the coming years

One food trend that just isn't going away is snack products. We recently looked at the category of plant-based snacks, which didn't even exist a few years ago. Instead of having Green Bay snacks or chips, these products are made purely from pulses with protein as their source. In a two-year period, the category went from a couple of bars on the shelf to more than seven hundred different products.

Protein bars used to be heavily nut based, but now they've all switched to being pulse-based, using chickpea, fava, and mung bean as a cheaper source of protein. Products that used to use dairy protein have also switched to pulses, which means that half the aisle now has pulse-based snacks from brand-new companies that are evolving and really starting to play in the space.

People are on the hunt for protein – we know that's the biggest trend right now. When you want to combine snacking and proteins, pulses will always be an obvious solution.