The Wide Open Agriculture Ltd (ASX: WOA) share price is edging higher during late afternoon trade. This comes as the regenerative food and farming company provided investors with an update on its lupin protein project.
At the time of writing, Wide Open Agriculture shares are up 1.35% to 75 cents.
What did Wide Open Agriculture announce?
In today's statement, Wide Open Agriculture advised that its new product development (NPD) team is progressing development of two new oat milk products.
Research into lupin began in May 2020 with the company producing a modified lupin-based protein (MLP) at pilot-scale in December. Nutritional analyses showed that the production process retained the nutritional quality of the modified lupin protein concentrate.
However, further testing is still being conducted as Wide Open Agriculture aims to expand its scientific, engineering and commercialisation capacity.
Initial samples have been sent to potential off-take partners across Europe, North America and Australia. The company is hoping to unlock significant commercial gains using lupin protein to create food and beverage products.
In addition, internal competitive analysis studies are underway to determine the competitive strengths of MLP against Soy, Pea and Faba proteins. So far, the results indicate that MLP has advantages over all other major plant-based proteins currently available in the market. This relates to protein concentration, kernels protein content, digestibility, and so on.
Wide Open Agriculture also has identified the site for its in-house, pilot manufacturing facility. The plant will be located at its distribution centre in Kewdale, Western Australia.
The first lot of equipment has arrived and will be used to test the company's manufacturing technology.
Wide Open Agriculture share price summary
Wide Open Agriculture shares have largely moved in circles over the past 12 months. During the period, its shares have lost around 25% in value, with year-to-date down about 15%.
The company's shares are treading at the lower end of its 52-week range of 62 cents to $1.25.
Wide Open Agriculture has a market capitalisation of roughly $75.12 million, with approximately 100.2 million shares outstanding.
