New Vegan Milk Made From Super Nutritious Split Pea Will Hit The Shelves In The UK

UK start-up Devon Garden Foods is getting ready to launch its first dairy alternative. Its plant-based milk is made from yellow split peas - currently the trendiest ingredient in the food industry. 

The company describes its product as a 'very rich, creamy, and highly nutritious' alternative to dairy milk. 

"Our goal was to be significantly better than plant-based competitors," CEO Cesar Torres tells FoodNavigator.

Cesar became vegan about six years ago. After completing sustainability and business ethics-focused MBA, he wanted to work in a food company that has a positive environmental impact. He founded Devon Garden Foods and decided to develop a plant-based product with the same nutritional profile to milk, but with a 'really enjoyable' taste.

After analysing hundreds of plants, he focused on the yellow split pea. Yellow split pea is the 'hottest commodity' in the plant-based food industry these days.

It is the same ingredient that Beyond Meat uses to make their famous plant-based product - the Beyond Burger. This legume is not only an excellent source of protein but also one of the most sustainable crops. It requires less water, land and fertiliser than other plant-based proteins. 

"The UK is an important producer of pulses, and being a British start-up, we want to maximise the value of British agriculture in the future, by incorporating as many of the crops that we grow in this country as possible," Cesar said. 

Devon Garden expects its first vegan milk to land on the supermarket shelves this summer.