IIT-Delhi Professor Creates Plant-Based Egg, Wins Contest by UNDP Accelerator Lab India

24 December 2020

Professor Kavya Dashora of Centre for Rural Development and Technology, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IIT-D) has won the first prize in the Innovate4SDG contest for creating a plant-based egg substitute. The contest was held by UNDP Accelerator Lab India and offered a reward of $5000 to the scientist.

Ms. Christiane Hieronymus, the Head of Economic Cooperation & Development, Embassy of Federal Republic of Germany, New Delhi conferred the winner along with Prof K. Vijay Raghavan, the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India.

The UNDP has recognized the plant-based egg created by Professor Dashora as integral to the progress of achieving the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which also includes ‘good health and well-being’ and ‘zero hunger’. Since plant-based food requires a fraction of the resources needed in factory farming of animals, it creates an opportunity to build healthier and more sustainable systems of food production.

Professor Dashora has also worked to develop other alternative proteins including plant-based mock chicken and mock fish. Her innovations were similar in taste, texture, nutritional profile, appearance and smell to animal meat.

Image Courtesy:  IIT Delhi

These egg and meat analogues were created with the aim of providing food with clean protein. With increased awareness of alternate proteins, a recognition by the UNDP is a great leap forward for plant-based innovations in India.

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