AGRICULTURE
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TCBusiness.com
tion as the pilot farm, and Bartlett says,
“Our R&D is on-going. It’s our life-blood.”
The many virtues of water lentils were
not recognized immediately, but they
revealed themselves as the company’s
R&D teams went to work. “One of the first
realizations was finding the plant,” explains
Sherlock, “and then understanding the
nutritional composition.”
Among the necessary scientific disciplines
for their research and development
are chemical engineers and nutritionists.
Sherlock explains, “What’s in it? How do
you keep what’s in it good? How does it
behave in an end-up application?”
Creating an end-product for human
consumption requires a wide array of
skill-sets around food science and safety.
Assuring food safety and adhering to
nutrition standards entail highly technical
skills, where company scientists convert
the material into something new and
more valuable.
And, the company has developed new
technologies to process their product.
“Nobody’s done this before, therefore all
the innovation has to come through Peter
and his group,” says Bartlett. “He can’t
recruit for these skills because nobody has
worked with them before.”
Another valuable attribute is that water
lentils are prolific, with an impressive
growth and productivity rate. “I would say
our areal productivity rate is more than
10 times the product rate of soy per acre,
that is the result of the technologies we’ve
developed,” says Sherlock. And, according
to Wittbjer, the plant material doubles in
biomass in every daily harvest.
Their business model is B2B, with Parabel
serving a range of customers for their
end-product. “We produce the raw ingredients
so that a third party produces pasta,
protein bars, hamburgers or whatever it
is they want to put our protein into for
their application,” says Bartlett. “So, in that
respect we’re farmers,” says Sherlock. “We
make a dry ingredient that goes into an
absolute vast array of food applications.”
Parabel’s process to transform water
lentils is what Bartlett terms a potentially
disruptive technology.
“It’s rare that a new ingredient comes
to the world,” he says. “We’re not talking
about a new muffin or a new protein bar
or a new application, we’re saying, how
often does a new ingredient come to the
western world?”
Parabel’s water lentils may also become
an ingredient in what is currently one of
the hottest commodities in the world —
plant proteins that can imitate the taste
of meat and supply enough protein to
become a meat substitute in our diets.
Water lentils are farm-to-table ready in
less than one hour. And the plants’ sustainability
includes another environmentally
stable component. Not only does the
farming not contribute to greenhouse
gases in the way that meat production
farms do, but the product can actually be
atmospherically beneficial through the
photosynthesis process which removes
CO2 (carbon dioxide) from the air.
Parabel’s new product and applications
are reaching a global market with sales
from New Zealand to Latin America, to
Canada and throughout Asia. And the
company is awaiting approval from the
European Union.
With corporate headquarters in Vero,
and two Fellsmere operation farms, Indian
River County may become home to the
global leader in producing revolutionary
new plant proteins for the world. v
PARABEL FARMS
Raw water lentils, a brand-new crop developed through extensive technological research at Parabel’s
Fellsmere farm, has many benefits. The superfood is vegan, protein dense, high in numerous vitamins and
minerals, and provides a natural form of vitamin B-12.
MARY ANN KOENIG
Parabel executive Paul Bartlett believes that
sustainability equals profitability.
“It’s rare that a new ingredient comes to the
world. We’re not talking about a new muffin
or a new protein bar or a new application,
we’re saying, how often does a new
ingredient come to the western world?” — Paul Bartlett
/TCBusiness.com