"Add protein to your mate": they own a gym and a joke sparked an unprecedented world creation

New proposals surrounding yerba mate are multiplying, but Pro Mate offers advanced food technology applied to the traditional product: it incorporates plant protein directly into the leaf and stem without modifying its flavor, aroma, and color. Santa Fe entrepreneurs Karen Márquez and Federico Serrano, along with an interdisciplinary group, are behind the initiative to convert yerba mate into a functional food. The process of patenting the protein yerba mate nationally and internationally is already underway, achieved through the application of fluidized bed technology, a technique used globally in the pharmaceutical industry and very little in the food industry, but never applied to yerba mate. In this way, the protein is fixed to the plant matrix of the yerba mate, achieving a "homogeneous, stable, and ready-to-consume composition without altering the organoleptic properties," explains Serrano to LA NACION. With the incorporation of more protein, the yerba mate goes from having ...