This episode featured as part of the Animal Feed and Nutrition segment in partnership with SealesWinslow.

Leaft Foods has won best ingredient innovation at the World Food Awards in London for its Rubisco protein isolate, and now has products for sale in New Zealand and the United States.

Co-founder Maury Leyland-Penno says the company has moved well beyond the potential it was describing a few years ago.

“At that point we’d raised a bit of capital so that we could get to a sort of pre-early commercial level,” she says.

“Now we’re at quite a different spot, we’re in the market with our products.”

Rubisco is the enzyme behind photosynthesis and the most abundant protein on earth, sitting in all green leafy crops.

“It’s been known for a long, long time that it has an amino acid profile that is better than any other protein.”

A paddock of good pasture or lucerne holds six to eight tonnes of protein, much of it Rubisco, she says.

Arable farmers grow lucerne for the company, which harvests it and puts it through a juicing process. The fibre returns to dairy farms as a protein-reduced silage, and the juice yields the isolated Rubisco protein. That protein goes in two directions: a consumer product, the Leaf Blade, and the isolate that won in London.

One application is an egg replacer, using half the amount of protein.

“Functionally, it’s kind of more eggy than egg in terms of the binding, emulsifying, water and oil holding.”

The protein also suits athletes.

“This has an amino acid profile superior to other protein and you can digest it five to six times faster than whey, so you can take it before or during your exercise.”

Business-to-business supply is the focus.

“There is no other Rubisco product you can buy in the world right now.

“New Zealand is leading this charge.”

The crop fits the rotation for arable growers as a perennial, nitrogen-fixing option with regular payments.

“We’re not going to beat the margins of a great small seed crop, for example, but we’re up from the bottom, so that provides a really attractive offer.”

Farmers grow the lucerne on contract while Leaft handles harvesting and agronomy, harvesting it at its most lush moment for maximum protein.

“You get to scale when it makes economic sense.”

Counting the Rubisco and the dairy protein from the returned silage, the company is already twice the protein production of dairy systems.

This episode featured as part of the Animal Feed and Nutrition segment in partnership with SealesWinslow. Whether it’s a custom blend or dairy pellet, smart modelling tools, or advice tailored for your farm, SealesWinslow is about nutrition that delivers measurable benefits. Through science, teamwork, and practical guidance, we make sure what you do today sets your herd up for better performance tomorrow. For more information visit https://sealeswinslow.co.nz/

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