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Short Communucation

Peru's Matrel launches animal protein bread fortified with omega

A new bread fortified with Proteinol will soon be launched in the city of Lima. This is a protein powder obtained from Peru's giant squid. Its creators assure that this is a much cheaper and more nutritious product than other animal proteins.

The fortified bread will be available to Peru's consumers by means of a strategic alliance between the raw material provider Provipan and Matrel, a Peruvian company engaged in the research, development and elaboration of nutritional products.

Luis Felipe Olaechea, the company general manager, told IntraFish that its product Proteinol is a concentrated animal protein, whose aim is to replace egg and milk proteins, which have a high cost in developing countries.

Enriched Foods
Proteinol can be used as a raw material to make different kinds of foods, thereby providing greater protein value at a lower cost, which will mainly benefit children suffering from malnutrition, pregnant mothers, elderly people and anyone who wants to enhance the quality of their nutrition.

"The idea of this fishmeal is to replace sources of animal protein like eggs and milk. Milk, for example, only contains 26% of animal protein whereas Proteinol has a minimum of 86%. Although eggs contain 80% of animal proteins, they do not contain Omega 3 and Proteinol does," Olaechea explained to IntraFish.

He said that they have started with bread but later on they also aim to use Proteinol as a raw material to make soups, energy bars, pasta and other foods.

He went on to say that the production process used by Matrel guarantees that the final product enriched with Proteinol is odorless and has no taste and it therefore does not alter the organoleptic characteristics of food products.

Fight against malnutrition
The creators of Proteinol added that they also hope this to be a useful food for Peru, which currently has 25% "chronic malnutrition," 56% anemia and 11% vitamin A deficiency in children under 5 years.

"The most serious cases are in children under 2 years, for whom malnutrition as of the end of breastfeeding can lead to irreversible physical and mental damage. Anemia in fertile women is 35% and 50% in pregnant women," states a company document.

However, in contrast to this reality Peru exports around two million tons of fishmeal a year to over 40 countries for use in animal fodder.

This explains why Matrel has decided to use this fish resource to make a product to enrich people's diets.

The company now has a representative in the United States, i.e., the company NutriScience Innovations, LLC and is in talks to add its product to other foods besides bread. www.matrelfoods.com

View write up (pdf)
View technical specifications (pdf)

MATREL
Av República de Panamá 5893 - Miraflores - Lima - Perú
Telf: (00511) 242-2412
Fax: (00511) 242-2414
matrel@millicom.com.pe
www.matrelfoods.com