Meala triples European texturising pea protein capacity

Meala FoodTech has more than tripled manufacturing capacity for its texturising pea proteins across production sites in France and Germany. The Israeli ingredient developer has moved into full commercial-scale production, targeting enough output in 2027 to replace the functional equivalent of 1,400 tonnes of eggs in food formulations.

Meala expresses that target as approximately 82,000 eggs a day. It is a forecast of what the expanded ingredient supply could replace, not a count of eggs already removed from commercial recipes. The company has not published a breakdown of capacity between the French and German sites, their actual production volumes or the proportion of next year’s output covered by confirmed orders.

The pea protein has been developed to perform several functions ordinarily supplied by eggs or other texturising ingredients. These include binding, gelling, emulsification and foaming. Their importance varies by product: a sponge cake needs a structure capable of retaining air during mixing and heating, whereas a formed meat alternative depends more heavily on binding, moisture retention and texture through preparation and cooking.

Replacing an egg ingredient consequently involves more than matching the mass of protein in a recipe. Eggs contribute water, solids and physical behaviour that change during manufacture. Removing them can alter batter viscosity, the distribution of incorporated air and the final texture. A plant protein system must be assessed in the complete recipe, with water balance and ingredient proportions adjusted to achieve the desired result.

Meala says its ingredients have demonstrated complete egg replacement in selected muffins, pound cakes and sponge cakes. These are supplier-reported formulation results, rather than independent performance guarantees for every commercial bakery. Different recipes contain different fat, sugar, starch and raising systems, and the processing conditions of a large industrial line may differ from those used to establish an initial formulation.

The company reports ingredient-cost savings of around 30–40% in the bakery applications it has assessed. That comparison concerns recipe ingredients, not total factory operating expenditure. Any saving will depend on the relative prices of eggs and the replacement system, the amount of protein required, adjustments to other ingredients and the specification of the finished product. It does not establish a comparable reduction for every bread, cake or pastry line.

Dry ingredient handling may also change when a liquid egg component is replaced, but savings in refrigerated storage or transport cannot be assumed without considering the existing factory setup. Commercial sites must qualify incoming materials, validate batch consistency and verify that new handling procedures maintain the required hygiene and product controls. The supplier says its system can be incorporated without major process changes in some applications; the suitability of that approach remains recipe- and line-dependent.

Meala’s technology extends beyond bakery. In plant-based meat products, proteins that form structure and retain water can help bind other ingredients into products designed to survive forming, heating and handling. The performance required differs from cake aeration, and results from one food matrix do not establish the behaviour of another. The company is also targeting alternatives to selected hydrocolloids, which perform different thickening, stabilising or gelling functions depending on the formulation.

The expansion follows work with food manufacturers evaluating the ingredient for commercial use. Meala says its ingredients already appear in products in European markets and identifies ingredient-industry partners developing routes to manufacturers. The presence of commercial applications provides evidence of adoption, but the announcement does not identify the volumes produced by each customer or show that all customers evaluating the material have completed industrial qualification.

Consistency between production locations is important because small variations in protein behaviour can affect whether a batter holds air or a formed product retains water. Manufacturing scale-up involves process control and specifications as well as equipment availability. The company reports work to standardise ingredient functionality, although it has not released comparative test results covering output from both European sites.

The commercial forecast must also be distinguished from a mass conversion between eggs and pea protein. The stated 1,400 tonnes represents egg material potentially displaced in recipes, not 1,400 tonnes of pea protein manufactured. Different functional substitution rates can be needed across bakery and savoury products, and the manufacturer has not supplied sufficient data to calculate its annual protein output directly from the egg-equivalence figure. Treating the numbers as interchangeable would overstate the scale of the manufacturing expansion.

Meala has not supplied independently verified production yields, plant utilisation rates or customer-by-customer savings for the expanded sites. Those figures would be needed to measure how much additional commercial ingredient actually reaches manufacturers during 2027, as distinct from the capacity now available to meet anticipated orders.

Its planned showcase at Fi Europe in Frankfurt will include egg-free bakery applications. Demonstrations can show how the ingredients perform in selected recipes; customers must still determine the economic and technical outcomes under their own production conditions. The principal development is expanded European manufacturing capacity, while the 2027 egg-replacement target remains subject to the level and composition of commercial demand.