Protein quality and bioavailability of indigenous crop-based ingredients and plant-based meat products in India

Protein quantity claims have become increasingly common across the packaged food industry. But do they paint the full picture? And do we need a more meaningful differentiator to assess nutritional value? The opportunity lies in moving beyond protein content to protein quality. India’s plant-based sector can benefit from a shift in consumer-facing nutrition communication, from ‘x g of protein’ to ‘x g of complete, digestible and bioavailable protein’. Benchmarking taste, texture, and cost parity of alternative proteins must be built on the foundation of more than just the equivalence of nutritional quantity, but quality as well. Future innovation in plant-based meat must prioritise protein quality and bioavailability, supported by robust evidence on how ingredient selection, processing, and cooking influence these metrics. As the world’s largest producer of millets and pulses, India has a significant opportunity to build a diverse and domestic protein ingredient ecosystem for the plant-based alternative protein sector. Realising this potential requires evidence-based crop selection. Further, the nutritional value of these crops must be assessed beyond the ingredient level, within the complex matrices of foods as consumed. At present, the Indian market comprises 200+ plant-based meat products across 20+ major formats, predominantly ready-to-cook. Back-of-pack labels declare protein content per 100 g or serving, but do not indicate how much of that protein becomes available for utilisation by the body after cooking and digestion. This study assesses the protein quality of both ingredients and end-products, using measures of protein solubility, in vitro bioaccessibility and bioavailability. It also tests the hypothesis that processing does not inherently compromise protein quality. Specifically, it evaluates: (1) which biological or thermal processing approaches best enhance protein quality in millets and pulses before further processing; (2) the effects of dry versus wet fractionation on protein quality parameters; and (3) the effects of cooking on protein bioavailability across commercial plant-based meat formats, including chunks, keema, kebabs, patties and nuggets. The key findings are as follows: ● Protein content ≠ Protein digestibility ≠ Protein bioavailability. Processing can substantially alter protein solubility, digestion, and the fraction potentially available for absorption, without corresponding changes in total protein content. ● Processing effects are crop-dependent. The optimal approach depends on the crop, the specific factors limiting protein digestion, and the mechanism by which a processing method mitigates these barriers. ● Biological processing shows promise for millets. Sprouting and fermentation improve the bioavailable fraction, suggesting their potential to enhance protein accessibility prior to extraction. ● Pulses benefit from both thermal and biological processing. Pressure cooking enhances the bioavailable fraction in chickpea and cowpea, while fermentation performs favourably across the pulses studied. ● Extraction method must be aligned with ingredient application. Wet fractionation results in higher protein concentration and bioavailable fraction for nutrition-focused applications, while dry fractionation better preserves solubility and can support functionality-driven, clean-label applications. ● Cooking plant-based meat does not necessarily compromise protein quality. In four of the five product formats tested, cooking either increases or retains the bioaccessible and bioavailable fractions of protein, with outcomes shaped by protein source, processing history and product format. ● Plant-based meat can deliver comparable or higher bioavailable fractions of protein than animal-derived meat. Across the product formats evaluated in this study, cooked plant-based meat products demonstrate a higher percentage bioavailability of protein than their corresponding animal-derived meat products. The use of protein concentrates that have undergone prior processing and partial structural modification may contribute towards accessibility to digestive enzymes and enhanced protein digestibility in plant-based meat products. Overall, these findings indicate that protein quality and bioavailability are influenced by processing and product structure, rather than being determined solely by the plant- or animal-derived origin of the protein.