DAVID Fienberg's passion for lupins continues as his company, The Lupin Company (TLC), is set to launch its new lupin flake product nationally next month.
The former Australian Export Grains Industry Centre (AEGIC) chief executive officer established the company in September last year following his departure from AEGIC in November 2015.
He has also held roles with Australasian Lupin Food Processing and former CBH subsidiary Lupin Foods Australia.
Mr Fienberg said interest was growing in lupins as a human food source due to its extensive health benefits.
According to the Lupin Food Company, lupins offer three times more protein than quinoa, more dietary fibre than oats, more potassium than bananas and more iron than kale.
Lupins are also gluten free.
"Lupins are one of the greatest things that has come along in the past 10 years as far as food is concerned for Australian farmers," he said.
"When we talk to people nationally and internationally, the main response has been 'where has this been and how come we don't know about it?'.
"Because it is so good it can become quite distracting - we know that it's a huge market and our intent is not to go with a shotgun approach but decided to narrow it down to health and wellness and gluten free and that it can be included in so many foods and food types."
After launching its online store late last year, TLC is working with health food stores and independent grocers to have lupin flakes on the shelves next month and open up an international market by the middle of the year.
The company was also working with bulk food producers to increase volume.
"There's a number of opportunities, firstly there's the retail space where flakes will retail at about the same price as almond meal - our pitch is $9.50 for 400 grams.
"We also have a number of restaurants in Perth that are using our product and then a larger offering in bulk type formats to use in products such as low carbohydrate breads.
"It's about developing the brand of lupins itself as well as our company."
Lupins for TLC are sourced directly from a select group of farmers in WA and processed at the company's facilities close to Perth.
Mr Fienberg said the company was able to use all varieties of lupins in manufacturing and would work with growers to develop quality assurance programs to ensure the flakes met the highest food standards.
"Australian foods in a marketing sense have great provenance opportunities for international markets and one of those things is transparency in chemical usage and our footprint in a lot of regards so it is really important that we continue that string right the way from the paddock through to the packet," he said.
"I think there's no doubt that as we develop we'll learn a lot more new things - it may be varietal, it may be in paddock agronomy, it may be a whole lot of things we haven't even thought of yet, but we want to work with forward thinking growers that take a deep interest in sustainable farming.
"We want these growers to get a real benefit and a breakthrough from that commodity mentality down to what the customer ultimately consumes."
Mr Fienberg said as well as the health benefits, TLC promoted the benefits of growing lupins as a break crop.
"One of the things that really excited me is that lupins and our product gives a real benefit back to WA farmers," he said.
"From a break crop perspective there are a whole lot of challenges facing farmers that canola and other crops just can't give them that lupins can such as deep rootedness, nitrogen fixing and the ability to act as a true break crop.
"I think if we can sell that story to a consumer who is looking at the health benefits but also the environmental benefits as a sustainable crop - I think this is a good story for WA farmers and it's clear there is a huge opportunity that hasn't been tapped yet."