Hemp: A Sustainable Plant with High Industrial Value in Food Processing

In the era of SDGs, useful plants which provide valuable industrial outputs and at the same time pose less impact on the environment should be explored. Hemp seems one of the most relevant gluten-free crop plants to meet such requirements. Its high nutritional value is comparable to soy. Moreover, almost the whole body of the hemp plant has a wide array of utility: industrial production of food, fiber, and construction materials. In view of environmental sustainability, hemp requires less pesticides or water in cultivation compared to cotton, a representative fiber plant. This short review investigates hemp’s sustainability as a plant as well as its utility value as a highly nutritional material in the food industry. Recent application research of hemp protein in food processing includes plant milk, emulsifiers, fortification of gluten-free bread, plant-based meat production, as well as membrane formation. These studies have revealed distinctive properties of hemp protein, especially in relation to disulfide (S-S)/sulfhydryl (-SH)-mediated interactions with protein from other sources. While its cultivation area and industrial use were limited for a while over confusion with marijuana, the market for industrial hemp is growing rapidly because it has been highly reevaluated in multiple areas of industry. Conclusively, with its sustainability as a plant as well as its distinctive useful property of the seed protein, hemp has promising value in the development of new foods.