ENOUGH’S game changing scale for non-animal protein

On 16 September 2022, foodtech company ENOUGH celebrated the completion of its Flagship plant with a ribbon-cutting event. The plant is one of the world’s largest protein facilities and aims to add game-changing capacity to the protein market.

Livestock farming represents 15% of all GHG emissions and with protein consumption forecast to double in the next 30 years, a protein transition is crucial to meet the protein gap sustainably. Producing vast quantities of delicious, nutritious and sustainable protein is one of the most urgent global priorities, and ENOUGH’s focus is on adding capacity to support the pace and scale of the required protein transition.

With initial capacity to produce 10,000 tonnes (22 million pounds) per annum later this year, the 15,000 square metre (160,000 square feet) facility is co-located alongside the Cargill facility in Sas van Gent in the Netherlands. The collaboration with Cargill ensures the most efficient feed source and supports the zero-waste advantages of ENOUGH’s product.

ENOUGH’s plans target 60,000 tonnes of capacity by 2027, equivalent to growing one cow’s worth of protein every two minutes. This is aligned with the development of the Circular Economy and the new facility has been supported by the Circular Bio Based Europe Joint Undertaking CBE JU with receipt of €16.9 million of EU funding as part of project Plenitude, involving 9 partners from the full value chain.

Jim Laird, CEO of ENOUGH said “ENOUGH’s aim is to grow capacity for sustainable non-animal protein sources in line with needs of the market. There are multiple forecasts about the pace of potential market growth and at this time the constraint on growth is a supply chain challenge of providing high quality protein sources at scale that can make delicious foods.”

ENOUGH grow ABUNDA® mycoprotein by fermenting fungi using renewable feedstocks to make the most sustainable source of food protein. The role of fermentation as an advantaged means of growing protein has been increasingly highlighted. The impact from switching 1M tonnes from animal sources to ABUNDA is the equivalent of replacing 5 million cows, or over 1.2 billion chickens, and reducing more than 6 million tonnes of CO2 emissions or the equivalent of planting over 30 million trees. 

ENOUGH’s process is readily scalable to use any locally grown feedstock and the company’s medium-term goal is to grow over 1 million tonnes cumulatively by 2032. To do so will require over 300k tonnes of annual capacity and ENOUGH anticipate that this will be in a minimum of 3 locations, close to both feedstocks and consumers.

ENOUGH’s vision is fully aligned with consumers desires to shift towards a more sustainable diet. The plant built in the Netherlands also supports the Dutch Government’s National Protein Strategy and its efforts to cultivate alternative protein sources, including microbial proteins and cultured meat.  ENOUGH also contributes to green job creation in the region as it currently employs 30 people directly and many more in the supply chain, with significant expansion plans.