Do shifting tastes present a chance for West African grain legumes?
Researchers at Wageningen University & Research have looked into the possibility of creating value chains for exporting leguminous African crops. Their primary goal was to comprehend the effects of coordinating agricultural growth and soil fertility restoration through nitrogen fixation in Africa with the demand for a more varied supply on the EU protein markets. The potential of three value propositions based on legumes has been evaluated: deforestation-free soyabean; bambara groundnut as a superfood snack; and cowpea flour as a thickening agent. A number of parameters were evaluated along the value chain, ranging from upstream sustainable farming to downstream customer approval (Figure 1).1.
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The potential for cowpea as a thickening agent in business
This legume flour as a premium functional ingredient would be a very potential business invention. Other than a variety of traditional African meals and fortified foods, flour is one of the principal processed cowpea products. African in origin, cowpeas (Vigna unguiculata) are an annual crop that are primarily farmed in semiarid tropical climates.