NuCicer Unlocking the Potential of the Humble Chickpea to Transform the Food System

With Wild Chickpea Varieties and Breeding Programs Powered by Machine Learning, NuCicer is Creating A Better Chickpea

(DAVIS, CA) - NuCicer, the company with the world’s most diverse chickpea breeding library, looks to address urgent challenges within our food and agriculture systems by unlocking the full potential of the chickpea. By leveraging background innovations from UC Davis that incorporate wild biodiversity across the Cicer (chickpea) genus and a breeding library with 40x more genetic power than traditional breeding programs, NuCicer offers consumers and food companies a better chickpea. With 75 percent more protein than today’s standard chickpea, the rapidly improving NuCicer chickpea could become the superfood found in every household.

“At NuCicer, we believe better chickpeas can offer a better future for consumers and farmers alike,” said Kathryn Cook, CEO and Co-Founder. “Our passion for providing a more nutritious – and delicious – high-protein chickpea drives us to continue the ground-breaking work we’ve been doing for years. We’re honored to be working with not just US but also multinational partners to expand growing better chickpea varieties across the world.”

How the NuCicer Chickpea Helps Growers

• By breeding genetically diverse wild chickpea ancestors with cultivated chickpea varieties (through nature-based non-GMO processes), NuCicer chickpeas have a shorter growing season, increasing climate resilience and reducing the need for chemical drying agents.
• Chickpeas, like other legumes, are spectacular nitrogen fixing crops. By naturally enriching the soil with nitrogen, they contribute to soil health and boost yields of rotational crops. Supporting farmers and their land health via reduced input costs and better per-acre profitability.
• NuCicer’s chickpeas contain more protein and less oil, reducing waste and saving costs in production processing, making the chickpea a higher margin crop for growers.

How NuCicer’s Chickpeas Benefit Consumers

• With NuCicer’s chickpeas containing more protein than commodity chickpea, wheat, corn, and rice, incorporating NuCicer’s improved chickpeas regularly into consumer diets lessens reliance on animal products and lowers GHG emissions.
• Chickpeas contain lots of fiber making them great for gut health, and NuCicer’s high-protein chickpeas are no exception with an average of 18% total fiber content.
• NuCicer high-protein chickpeas unlock opportunities to reduce processing steps and bring down production costs, enabling a world of better-for-you products across snack foods, pastas, breakfast foods, alternative meats and dairy.

Commercial-scale production of the world's first high-protein chickpea variety launched 2023, and NuCicer has expanded production by 10x this summer to meet growing demand. Previous funding rounds lead by Leaps by Bayer and Lever VC are enabling NuCicer to continue this tremendous growth and work toward reducing chickpea production costs, improving crop resilience, and providing a sustainable plant protein to consumers.

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About NuCicer

NuCicer, the leading authority on chickpeas, works with farmers, producers and policy makers across the globe to improve the health and well-being of eaters and ecosystems alike. Leveraging background innovations from UC Davis that incorporate wild biodiversity across chickpea (Cicer) species, NuCicer has the world’s most diverse chickpea breeding library with 40x more genetic power than traditional chickpea breeding programs. With up to 75% higher protein content than commodity chickpea, NuCicer’s Gen1 variety delivers nutritional density with improved function without compromising flavor.