New application of Brewers Spent Grain for food

Brewers Spent Grain (BSG) is a side stream from beer production which is currently largely valorised for animal feed. Alternatively, it could also serve as a food ingredient; with an eye on nutritional value (relatively high content of dietary fibre and protein) it is considered a healthy food ingredients for western diets. Indigo / MaGie Creations is a start-up and intends to initiate the production of a food ingredient (first intended application: bread) from BSG. It creates additional value for the products in which this is added and it will reduce the food waste in Brewery and reduce use of grain for produce bread. With financial support of a Voucher from the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality a project was started to select the possible ways of collecting the BSG, to select a drying technology, to investigate the food safety of the process of collecting and drying, to analyse if the process is economically feasible and carry out an analysis on sustainability. After the technological options and effects on microbiological and economic feasibility and sustainability effects have been investigated for the use of BSG as an application as an ingredient in food, it is concluded that it is quite possible under certain conditions. Those are collection on a foodsafe method, transport and process it either warm above 60°C of chill it rapidly before transport, remove water via a press, dry with a paddle or flash dryer and milling after drying to achieve an ingredient which can be used easily. In sustainability analysis it was found that replacing wheat flour by dried BSG does contribute to net GHG emission reduction in food production, although the net saving is small compared to the total emissions. It also contributes to reduction of land use: using 1 kg BSG as food ingredient, replacing 1kg wholemeal flour, will free up 2 m2 farm land

To be or not to be a biobased commodity : assessing requirements and candidates for lignocellulosic based commodities

Lignocellulosic biomass is an underutilised renewable resource. Using this biomass for biobased applications is hampered by a lack of possibilities to efficiently link the biomass to markets which include both energy applications such as heat and electricity production, conversion to transport fuels and chemicals and materials. Siting conversion facilities near abundant biomass has the benefit of availability of low cost biomass, but the locations generally lack security of supply, availability of qualified personnel, and do not benefit from existing infrastructure and possibilities to add value to residues. Furthermore, the scale of conversion systems is limited by local cost of biomass supply. The development of real lignocellulosic commodities can connect biomass to markets and lower the opportunity costs of the commodities. The characteristics of real commodities are defined as follows: a commodity has to be easy to store, have a high (energy) density and be nutrient depleted. The commodity has to be uniform enough to be fungible. This will allow standardization of transport, contracting, insurance, conversion systems and development of functioning markets which includes high tradability and availability of financial instruments. Finally sustainability also has to be standardized. Several candidates as real commodities exist including wood pellets and pyrolysis oil. It is argued that only a few biomass commodities have to be defined that cover all lignocellulosic biomass types (wood, grass, straw, bagasse, processing residues, etc.) and also all applications such as heat, electricity, fuels, chemicals and materials. The standards have to be as wide as possible and avoid frivolous or unnecessary demands. To achieve this all stakeholders in the production chain (biomass producers, machine builders, regulators, insurers, bankers, transport, final users) have to be involved. This will require international collaboration else the potential lignocellulosic biomass will not materialize. The development of real lignocellulosic commodities can connect biomass to markets and lower the cost of biomass supply by lowering transaction costs. Commodities can contribute to efficient and circular use of biomass by giving biomass that would not have an efficient use (stranded biomass) a market