What is your role at Herba Ingredients? Could you tell me a bit about your background and the business?

I’m a biochemist with 22 years experience in the industry. I’m responsible for marketing and new business development at Herba Ingredients, which itself is the ingredients division of Ebro Foods. Ebro Foods is a Spanish multinational with a presence in more than 50 countries around the world. We’re the leader in branded rice products in Europe and North America and we’re the second largest in pasta. 

In the UK, we have brands like Tilda for rice. In France, you’ll know us from Lustucru and Panzani, which are rice and pasta brands. We started our ingredients division around 20 years ago to take advantage of our rice mills, and we now produce all different types of ingredients from rice: flours, starches, pellets, baby food rice, and many more. I think that we’re the leader in Europe in rice ingredients, and we’re also operating in the US.

Around 5 or 6 years ago, we also became interested in pulses; this was for a variety of different reasons. We saw the opportunity in the growing market, and our customers were asking us for these pulse ingredients. And, from an industrial point of view, it was a good fit for us. Both rice and pulses are allergen-free so we could easily use our mills and our rice-flour facilities to produce pulse flours. We started in a small factory in Spain producing pulse flours: chickpea flours, lentil flours, pea flours, etc. That grew business well for us so we then asked Ebro Group for money to build a new factory in Belgium. We got that money and we built that factory, which has been operational for 2 years. We make pulse flours there but also proteins and starches from peas and faba beans. We also make textured proteins there. I think it’s been an excellent decision because the last few years have seen an explosion in popularity for these types of ingredients. It’s been driven by the need for meat and dairy alternatives and also because some other sectors and industries are looking into pulse ingredients: the snack industry, for example. 

I see that Herba Ingredients focuses specifically on the organic and allergen-free side of things. What made you decide to take that avenue specifically?

It was because of our history and position in rice; we have access to a huge amount of raw material through the group. And the gluten-free market has really boomed in the past 10 years: those products often use rice flour or rice ingredients. For us, it’s very important to be able to guarantee allergen-free products and gluten-free ingredients. We consider ourselves an allergen-free company; our customers require that from us and they need it for their products. And obviously GMO-free fits into that strategy as well. When we started with pulse ingredients, it was a continuation of our strategy. 

Do you feel that consumer preference/need has driven the market to move more into plant-based foods, or do you see the market as having driven consumer preference? Or is it a mix?

If we talk about pulses, I think it’s a combination. Obviously, the consumer is more informed now and demands healthier products. Food that contains pulses or pulse ingredients fits in with a healthy lifestyle. I think that the pandemic has accelerated this. People eat at home more, have more time to cook and are more concerned about their health so, in that sense, it is driven by the consumer. But it’s also driven by the news, by the changing climate; pulses can help with climate change. And, like I mentioned, pulses play a big role in meat replacement. They fit into modern society: consumers are interested in healthy food, it’s good for the land, it’s good for the environment and agriculture. I’d say that it fits in with modern life. 

You’re obviously very big in Western Europe and North America; are your suppliers all over the world?

In the case of rice, we have some rice fields in Europe, but they can’t supply enough to fulfill the European need for rice. So much of our rice comes from Asia or South America and we import it into Europe. For pulses, we try to keep it as local as possible; that also fits within our strategy of being better for the environment, using more local products, etc. We try to work with European materials as much as possible. For example, we’re going one step further with faba beans and working with farmers growing faba beans in the Netherlands and Belgium for our own needs. 

If you’re importing from all over and shipping out to everywhere, presumably you’ve been affected by the shipping chaos?

I think that everyone in the world is affected by it. Prices are going up; there are different reasons, but I think that one of those is that everything is more expensive because of the ocean freight crisis. It’s had a huge impact especially for our rice business as most of our rice comes from Asia but there’s not much we can do about it. It will depend on the shipping and freight companies. 

Have you been seeing an impact on harvest and yields related to climatic disruption over the past couple of years? Has that disruption affected your business?

It has, yes. Of course, if you work with agricultural products, you always have good years and bad years. You have to live with that. But, for example, we have rice fields in Spain, where we grow organic rice and baby-food rice and, due to the drought in the south of Spain, in 2021 we saw a significant decrease in harvest volumes. It’s difficult to say if this is a trend but it looks like it. 

How do you see 2022 developing for you, given that there’s no certainty of a resolution?

It was a very good decision for us to step into the pulse-ingredients business, because pulses are more available in Europe than rice. With rice, we mainly depend on rice from other continents, but we work with European pulses so the freight crisis is affecting our pulse business less than it’s affecting our rice business. We hope that in 2022 there will be more of a stabilization of prices, but we think that they will keep being very high. And, of course, these costs are affecting our customers as well because we’ve had to increase some of our prices. That will affect our customers and it will ultimately affect their customers — the consumer — but this is inevitable. 

Do you feel that consumers are aware of the situation and that rising costs have to trickle down to them at some point?

The ocean freight crisis really began in February of 2021, so almost a year ago. Most contracts were already closed by that time, so our customers weren’t really affected by it at that point. We were affected, as we had to pay more for our raw materials, but our customers weren’t and so neither were the consumers. But with new contracts in place, prices have increased and now the consumer is feeling the effect of that. We’ve seen this coming for a while. In the beginning, we informed our customers; they weren’t really aware of it. Later, though, everybody read about it in the news. Little by little, everybody became aware and I think that, by now, most consumers have felt the effect. If you want to buy a new iPhone, you have to wait several months. I wanted to buy a new bicycle and I had to wait 8 months for it. The same with cars. Everything is taking a long time so I think that consumers are aware now.

Do you see the plant-based food and healthy food market as one that is going to continue to grow and evolve, especially as the environmental and economic necessities become stronger?

Yes, definitely. I’m really convinced about that. People have to ingest protein, and they can have plant protein or animal protein. And, with the world’s growing population, we need more and more protein to feed the world. We just can’t keep producing meat; it’s just not working anymore. With all the new legislation regarding emissions, nitrogen management and so on, I would say that pulses are the best option: the best plant protein that you can eat. Pulses are high in protein, they’re healthy for people, and they’re healthy for the soil, so they’re a solution for many of our problems. So yes, definitely, the market will grow.