Frontier Agriculture is building a new bean processing plant at the company’s site near Nottingham, UK. It will process beans to de-hull them creating a UK-produced high protein, low fibre binder which can be used as fish feed ingredient and other feed products. With protein levels approaching 30%, de-hulled beans are a better binder and a valuable source of protein replacing wheat in aquaculture diets.

Nick Heald, commercial director and responsible for added value processing initiatives at Frontier, said that the company is making a significant investment to open up this market for farmers with potential benefits to the whole supply chain.

“For growers, beans are attractive agronomically as they offer an opportunity to widen the rotation, spread risk and increase gross margins across the rotation. In addition, they enable farmers to supply a growing market demand for sustainable sources of protein. We are offering new contracts with a significant premium over standard feed beans. Meanwhile, for the end consumer, we are making a UK-produced sustainable protein source more readily available.”