The reliance by North American regulatory authorities on in vivo rodent bioassays—Protein Correct-Amino Acid Score (PDCAAS) in the U.S. and Protein Efficiency Ratio (PER) in Canada—to measure the protein quality for protein content claim substantiation represents a major barrier for innovation in the development and marketing of protein foods. Together with public health efforts to increase the consumption of plant-based foods, removing hurdles is key to incentivizing the food industry to measure protein digestibility in making food formulation decisions as well as in claiming protein content on product labels. To address this issue, a pathway has been proposed to position alternative methods for in vitro protein digestibility in collaborative studies to generate the data necessary for method approval by a certifying body. The latter is critical to the potential recognition of these methods by both Health Canada and the US FDA. The purpose of this article is to briefly summarize the state-of-the-art in the field, to inform the research community of next steps, and to describe the path engaging collaborative laboratories in a proficiency test as the first step in moving forward toward acceptance of in vitro digestibility methods. Throughout, a consultative and iterative process will be utilized to ensure the program goals are met. Success will be achieved when the proposed path results in the acceptance of an in vitro methods for protein digestibility used for PDCAAS determinations, which will enable increased protein analyses and improved nutrition labeling of protein foods.
This research was supported by IAFNS Protein Committee