Norwegian vegetables, legumes and grains in sustainable vegetarian products

Vegetarian products and concepts in the ready-to-eat category are growing rapidly in the market today. Nowadays, vegetarian products in the Norwegian market are either imported, or based on a large proportion of imported raw materials and ingredients.

The project NORSKVegetar will work with key challenges to increase the production of Norwegian food products in the vegetarian segment, based on Norwegian plant-based raw materials. The project will be an important contribution for the future, through interdisciplinary value chain collaboration between Norwegian companies and research institutes: Nofima and the medical research centre Igelosa Life Science in Sweden.

Important research areas will be Norwegian plant-based raw materials and side streams, optimal processes and new technology, as well as market and consumer understanding.

Visiting minister

In February 2024 Minister of Agriculture and Food Geir Pollestad and his entourage, took a trip to JÆDER Ådne Espeland AS, to learn more about their production, as well as the research behind and the development of Jæder’s new product range Dyrka, which consists of plant-based products based on Norwegian raw materials.

Nofima, led by senior researcher Grethe Iren Andersen Borge, has been responsible for the research. The Dyrka series is the result of the NorskVegetar Innovation Project.

Photo: Kjell Erik Bjørnsen

Key challenges

We have defined five areas with key challenges that are important to succeed in innovation:

1. Plant-based ingredients and vegetarian products with most Norwegian raw materials – we want products with a variety of Norwegian plant-based raw materials and ingredients,
2. Technology for optimal pre-processing of Norwegian plant-based raw materials – we want to refine Norwegian plant-based raw materials for various ingredients that can easily be included in recipes for new Norwegian vegetarian products of high quality,
3. Increased sustainability through increased use of residual raw materials and side streams for food and additives – we want to increase the value of surplus raw materials which today is used for animal feed and composting,
4. Nutritional quality – we want good nutritional composition of ingredients and products,
5. High acceptance in the market – we want that ingredients and products from the project meet market and consumer needs.

NORSKVegetar is based on all these challenges across industries and disciplines and will develop new knowledge for future production of vegetarian products.