Case study

Domestic value chain for protein crops for food

Participating partners: Copenhagen Business School (Denmark)

This case study seeks to identify the success factors of a Danish value chain providing food legumes grown in Denmark.

Legumes for human consumption play a minor role in Danish agriculture. Likewise, legumes play a relatively small role in Danish diets. There is a large gap between the recommended amounts of plant-based protein intake and actual consumption levels. However, consumption is now slowly increasing, and new small companies emerged that created domestic value chains for Danish legumes – from farm to fork.

Specific research questions are:

  • How did they manage to convince farmers to come on board?
  • How did they manage to get their products on to the supermarket shelves of large retail chains?
  • Who are their consumer target groups? What are their efforts to change consumers’ food habits (increase the intake of plant-based proteins)?