Technical feasibility study for a range of dehydrated sprout-based products: CTCPA supports Déshyderata

The CTCPA supported DÉSHYDERATA with a technical feasibility study for the development of a range of dehydrated products based on sprouted cereals and legumes. A look back at the company's activity and our support with founder Hélène BUTAT.

"I needed to refer to the CTCPA to benefit from the knowledge and experience of an expert.
The CTCPA helped me validate the recipes and enabled me to obtain fixed, well-defined manufacturing processes."

Introduce us to your business

Déshyderata is a start-up company that designs, manufactures and markets dehydrated vegetarian savoury cookies with sprouted legumes, in ainnovation and sustainable and eco-responsible food transition.

Our concept is based on replacing cooking with a combination of germination and dehydration. Sprouting enhances the nutritional value of the seeds, making them easy to digest. Dehydration preserves nutrients and changes the structure of the preparation, giving it a crunchy texture.

Our "Coup de Pousse" savoury cookies are both delicious and healthy. Organic, 100% plant-based and gluten-free, they have been developed with sprouted lentils, sunflower seeds, linseed and chia seeds. Coup de Pousse is available in 5 flavors: tomato-olive-thyme, cumin-caraway, herbes de Provence, curry, pepper-Espelette bell pepper. Available in flower and petal formats.

Coup de Pousse is aimed at consumers attentive to the health benefits of food, particularly when it comes to alternatives to animal proteins and gluten-free proposals. Cookies are also available to accompany the creativity of caterers in the composition of mignardises.

What's your background?

I worked in the maritime industry for 27 years. For several years, I had been putting the finishing touches to a reconversion project. In 2021, I decided to activate an agri-food project. I began by devoting several months to a literature review on the subject of sprouted seeds and food transition in order to refine my project.

Why did you choose sprouted seeds?

Before I changed my career, I used to go to a plant-based restaurant. The cook would come up with a number of suggestions for which she would sprout seeds of all kinds. It was by asking her questions that I discovered the benefits of germination. This eminently natural process immediately caught my attention.

Processing, particularly cooking, leads to a loss of nutrients and can be a source of nutritional waste. On the other hand, when a seed germinates, it becomes rapidly digestible, and the bioavailability of nutrients is accentuated. I realized that this was an area where I could make a proposal for a dietary transition, and I wanted to devote my energy to it.

What are the benefits of your approach to the dietary transition?

Today I'm working on a proposal for a dietary transition based on the idea of making legumes and cereals digestible by sprouting them. The advantages of this process are manifold:

• Food/organism suitability and prevention of nutritional wastage: sprouted seeds have a heightened nutritional value and are easier to digest. They have the potential to meet the "eat less but better" criterion, which will be preponderant when we start to experience the effects of lower crop yields due to increasingly difficult climatic conditions;


• Plant proteins: legumes and cereals are good alternatives to animal proteins;


• Sustainable agriculture: legumes require little climatic comfort. What's more, by capturing nitrogen from the air, they help enrich the soil. They are therefore a good tool for resilient, sustainable agriculture;


• Energy optimization: by exposing food to lower temperatures than conventional cooking, dehydration presents opportunities for energy optimization, particularly when sunshine conditions can be used to heat the dehydration air;


• Extension of supply chains - New skills: integration into the legume and cereal supply chains, with the production and processing of legumes / sprouted cereals.

Why did you contact the CTCPA?

I started germinating seeds to make the process my own. I soon started experimenting with recipes. But coming from a maritime background, I didn't feel I had the right to market a highly innovative product without having validated my project with an expert agri-food organization. So I organized a technical and economic validation, including an intervention by the CTCPA.

How did the CTCPA support you?

The CTCPA supported me with a technical feasibility study for the development of a range of dehydrated products based on sprouted cereals and legumes.

The first step was to measure the technical prefeasibility of my project, based mainly on documentary research and risk analysis. We then moved on to the Product R&D based on the recipes I supplied to the CTCPA. And finally, the last stage consisted of the scaling up the manufacturing process.

The CTCPA purchased an industrial dehydrator for the project.

How did the support go?

I needed to refer myself to the CTCPA to benefit from the knowledge and experience of an expert. This was vital for the progress of my project, as well as for my personal learning in this new professional field. The CTCPA understood my problems and did everything possible to meet my needs. I appreciated the exchanges with my dedicated contact. This enabled me to move on to the production stage with fixed, well-defined recipes and manufacturing processes.

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CONTACT DÉSHYDERATA : 

• Hélène BUTAT: helene_butat@yahoo.fr


• Website

CONTACT CTCPA : 

• Gilles BERTHEAU, Plant proteins & cereals business manager: gbertheau@ctcpa.org

The development of food products, processes and packaging is at the heart of our DNA. As a technical center, our mission is to identify, test and advise on innovations processes, products, ingredients, packaging for a organoleptic experience, and health of your consumers. You have a project? Please contact us!