The United Soybean Board (USB) announced the award of $1.1 million to the Purdue University Food Entrepreneurship and Manufacturing Institute (FEMI), in partnership with the University of Arkansas and the University of Missouri, for a joint project that is working to build infrastructure and connectivity for small- and medium-scale processing of soy-based value-added products.

The project is co-funded by the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, a federal organization that supports research activities focused on addressing key agriculture problems including plant health and production, agricultural economics and rural communities, and agricultural and food security.

Dharmendra Mishra, associate professor and director of FEMI, will lead the project that was born out of a national discussion on the soybean value chain. Fellow Purdue team members for the grant are Senay Simsek, department head and professor of food science; Katy Rainey, associate professor of agronomy; and Karen Hudson, a USDA-ARS research and molecular biologist. Beginning Oct.1 with a planned one-year time frame, the project will focus on phenotyping for compositional traits in novel value-added applications, trials to eliminate pressure on small- to medium-scale industry sectors and final product quality and sensory evaluations.

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