Harvesting sugar beet leaves for protein: More leaves the better

These days the Riecam RBM230, a modern-day classic, is a popular starting point for farmers and contractors to transform to a second life as a self-propelled mechanical hoe or infield chaser bin.

The sole job of Hack’s version is to harvest sugar beet leaves for sugar company Cosun Beet. In December 2018, Cosun acquired Dutch start-up Green Protein, which has developed a process to extract the 1-3% protein contained in green leaves.

Leaf potential

For the past two seasons, the pilot project near the sugar factory at Dinteloord, south of Rotterdam, has processed leaves from a couple of crops, including lucerne. The plan is to experiment with other crops in the future, but the focus for the 2020 campaign was squarely with sugar beet.

The dark green juice extracted during the pressing of 10-20t of leaves per hectare is refined and dried to produce 180-280kg of high-quality protein powder containing