InovAmazônia, GFI Brazil's research incentive project, receives proposals until 12/12/22

The Good Food Institute Brazil has just launched its newest project in the Biomas Program to encourage research, the InovAmazonia: Ingredients for the Plant-Based Food Market. With resources from JBS Fund for the Amazon, the objective is to develop solutions and food ingredients for the alternative plant-based protein industry, based on species native to the Amazon biome.  In total, around €100 million will be invested. R$2,7 million to carry out the research.

Discover the notice and register your research proposal!

1. RESEARCH TYPES

Exploratory research: identification of potential sources of new ingredients from fungi originating from the Amazon biome, which have not yet been widely investigated in the field of alternative proteins. 

• Thematic line 1: Production of biomass from filamentous fungi and/or edible fungi (mushrooms) originating from the Amazon biome for application in similar vegetable meat products.
• Deadline of the research: 12 months.  
• Value per project: R$174.000,00

Applied research: solutions and advances in the production and application of ingredients in analogous vegetable meat products. The aim is to optimize methods sustainable way of obtaining ingredients, developing prototypes from application of these ingredients and generate technologies with potential for application in industry. The native species for the modality applied research are: Acai, Babassu, Cocoa, Brazil Nut, Cupuacu, Guarana and Tucumã.

• Thematic line 2: Production of textured vegetable protein from mix of ingredients obtained from native species of the Amazon biome, vegetable proteins that already have a history of commercialization on a large scale in Brazil and other necessary ingredients. 
• Thematic line 3: Optimization of new ingredients using sustainable and scalable technological processes. Physical, chemical and biological technological processes necessary for the best result may be used, with the application of fermentation and/or the use of enzymes being desirable. The ingredients must have a positive impact on the quality characteristics of the analogous vegetable meat products. 
• Deadline from the research: 20 months. 
• Value per project: R$500.000,00

2. RATING CRITERIA

Proposals will be evaluated considering criteria of scientific alignment, expected impact of the project, contribution to the scientific community, contribution to local producing communities, project planning and commercial relevance. It is also mandatory:

• Involve a community, cooperative, association, or agroindustry located in the Amazon Biome in the research;
• Partnership with researchers from institutions, colleges and universities located in the Amazon Biome.

3. IMPORTANT DATES

Call launch – 03/11/2022

Deadline for submission of research proposals – 03/11/2022

Call Presentation Workshop – 16/11/2022

Deadline for submission of research proposals – 12/12/2022

Result of selected proposals – 23/01/2023

Announcement of the final result of proposals with signed contracts – 01/08/2023

Project start date forecast – July/August 2023

4. SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS

Proposals must be submitted through the registration platform GFI Good Grants. Questions can be sent to the email science@gfi.org 

5. IMPORTANT LINKS

Access the Notice

Watch the InovAmazônia presentation workshop

Get your questions answered in the Questions and Answers document

Submit your research proposal

Your project can contribute to a safer, fairer and more sustainable food system today and in the future.