ADM, a global leader in alternative protein and nutrition products and solutions, and Benson Hill, a food tech company unlocking the natural genetic diversity of plants, announced a long-term strategic partnership to scale innovative soy ingredients that will help meet the rapidly growing demand for plant-based proteins. The partnership will serve a variety of plant-based food and beverage markets to meet savory, sweet and dairy customer needs.

Through the collaboration, ADM will process and commercialize a portfolio of proprietary ingredients derived from Benson Hill Ultra-High Protein (UHP) soybeans through an exclusive North American licensing partnership. The collaboration will scale innovative ingredients enabled by Benson Hill genetics that feature less-processed proteins with significant water and carbon sustainability benefits, representing an exciting new frontier in taste, texture, nutrition, and functionality for alternative protein solutions.

“We’re excited to launch this collaboration with Benson Hill, building full seed-to-fork capabilities with cutting-edge technologies that will allow us to offer new, innovative products to our alternative protein customers,” said Leticia Gonçalves, ADM’s president of Global Foods. “The global trends of food security and sustainability are driving significant and ongoing demand growth for alternative proteins: Alternative meat and dairy sales alone are expected to grow 14% a year, reaching $125 billion by 2030. ADM has expanded global capacity to meet that demand with the acquisition of Sojaprotein and the recently announced investment to enhance processing and supply capabilities and build a new protein solutions innovation center in Decatur, Illinois. Now, working with Benson Hill, we’re taking the next step, expanding our value chain and adding new technologies that will power our ability to offer differentiated, high-value products to meet consumer demand for delicious, nutritious alternative proteins.”

Benson Hill’s CropOS technology platform combines food science, data science and plant science to empower a new era of plant genomics innovation. It brings together powerful data analytics and biological knowledge to combine the genetic information of a plant, formulation needs of a customer, and data from farmers to help develop more nutritious, flavorful, and sustainable ingredients. When combined with ADM’s broad expertise and capabilities in origination, applications and formulation, as well as current and expanded processing capacity for human food markets, the collaboration will create a pathway toward commercial-scale seed-to-fork production of higher-value alternative protein products.

The two companies will jointly engage farmer partners seeking opportunities to participate in the seed-to-fork food revolution.

“Seed innovation underpins the seed-to-fork movement by solving food formulation challenges in the farmer’s field, creating ingredients that are better from the beginning,” said Benson Hill, chief executive officer, Matt Crisp. “This partnership with ADM represents a major milestone in advancing our business to its next stage of growth, which also will serve to broaden our proprietary product portfolio and drive significant scale of ingredients derived from Benson Hill genetics. We are excited to partner with ADM to help address demand in high-value and high-growth protein ingredient markets, while broadly delivering innovation and impact across the agri-food value chain to benefit farmers, food companies and consumers.”