Providing sustainable access to high-quality dietary protein is a key challenge of our time. Demand for plant-based protein sources is rising, but their nutritional quality often falls short compared to animal proteins.
Protein quality depends on both the amino acid profile and the digestibility of each essential amino acid. The FAO recommends the Digestible Indispensible Amino Acid Score (DIAAS) for assessing protein quality, but current determination requires costly and ethically controver-sial in vivo studies.
Agroscope, in collaboration with European experts in the INFOGEST consortium, has devel-oped an innovative in vitro method for assessing protein digestibility that shows a high correla-tion with in vivo results. The ProDigyII project aims to further validate this method and estab-lish it as an international recognized ISO/IDF standard. A standardized, cost-efficient, and reproducible method will provide researchers, the food industry, and regulatory bodies with a powerful tool to reliably evaluate and improve protein sources.