Healthy food rich in protein and dietary fiber. Soybean texture ingredients
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India should try to look at the value addition of processing its oilseeds, such as soybeans, rather than viewing them from the point of meeting the country’s cooking oil needs, industry experts have said. The focus worldwide is now shifting to such developments rather than viewing oilseeds as only an oil source.
Their view comes on the heels of the Indian government mulling mixing soymeal in wheat flour, sold under the Bharat Atta brand, to overcome its population’s protein and nutritional deficiency. At least 70 per cent of the Indian population is protein-deficient.
The views were expressed at a meeting of a trade delegation from India and Pakistan with the Iowa-based Insta-Pro International, which produces equipment for manufacturing chemical-free poultry and livestock feed ingredients.
FSSAI norms
“The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India allows only 10 per cent of mixing soymeal in food. This has to be reviewed if we are looking at better value addition in processing of oilseeds such as soybean,” said DN Pathak, Executive Director, Soybean Processors Association of India.
Extracting more oil and proteins from soybeans will help solvent extractors and food manufacturers. Protein from soybeans also works better in diet formulation. One of the problems in the current solvent extraction methods of processing soybeans is that it leaves a “beany flavour”, said Pathak.
Suresh Itapu, CEO of Nutritech Consulting Service Pvt Ltd, said soymeal can be used in cookies and with better flavour, and as much as 40 per cent of the meal can be added.
Thermal process
Founded in 1969, Insta-Pro International produces extruders that can process oilseeds, corn and rice. Adam Sackett, global sales director of Instra-Pro, said the extruder process helps in producing low-fat oilmeals with low moisture.
This would, particularly, help in the better digestion of meals by poultry and livestock animals. Explaining the process, Sackett said soybean is cleaned, broken and extruded through its equipment, which then cooks the beans at 160 degrees Celsius and removes 70 per cent of the oil content.
The oil is removed and can be refined, while the meal is cooled at around 50 degrees Celsius and either converted into pellets or powdery grains. Jenneth Colina, director of nutritional research, told the delegation that soybeans can be processed using chemical and mechanical processes, too. But Pro-Insta is using a thermal process that improves nutrition and digestion, besides improving oil extraction.
“Our process ensures the email is free from hexane and organic solvents,” she said.
Mouse around elephant’s feet
Pathak said Indian soybean and other oilseed processing is based on deriving oils. “The issue of nutritious feed is like a mouse around the elephant’s feet. It has not been given the required attention,” he said.
A trade source said some Indian firms had purchased such extruders and were using them for the export of organic soymeal to the US. But with the shipments getting affected, they shifted their machinery to Africa.
Pathak said Indian crushes have to consider value addition in processing, which would help in getting oilmeals that can meet the country’s nutritional requirements for humans and animals.
Colina said such nutritious and protein-rich oilmeals help in getting a premium. “These feeds have resulted in higher egg mass and quicker gain in body weight of poultry birds. Lactation improved among dairy animals due to more digestible protein,” she said, adding that farmers also gain as a result of higher income.
(The writer was in the US on the invitation of the US Soybean Export Council)
Published on August 26, 2025