17.07.2024
Breweries
News
The future of beer: processing sustainable protein from brewers’ spent grain
Sustainable sources of high-quality protein are essential to meet the ever-growing global demand for healthy, affordable and nutritious food. Viravix Engineering’s expertise in protein makes it an ideal partner for technology and solutions in this area.
Innovations in this area are exciting and rapidly evolving, and one of the latest newcomers to the market is an American company that has not only developed a sustainable plant protein but also uses brewing waste as a raw material.
EverGrain™, a subsidiary of the global brewing giant Anheuser-Busch InBev, has developed an advanced process for producing high-quality protein isolate from spent grain in the beer brewing process.
The resulting product – EverPro® – is then sold as an ingredient to food companies for addition to various products, including sports nutrition shakes and coffee drinks. The high nutritional value, mild flavor and best beverage solubility on the market make this product ideal for increasing protein content in various consumer product categories.
“EverPro is a nutrient-dense plant protein that is sustainably produced from barley grown and produced in the United States,” says Greg Belt, CEO of EverGrain. “It is completely water-soluble and has a clean flavor, making it a very versatile ingredient and suitable for numerous products, including ready-to-drink and ready-to-blend beverages such as protein shakes and coffee, as well as smoothies and energy bars.”
With sustainability at its core, EverGrain transforms what was previously dried and sold as low-value animal feed into a sustainable source of high-quality, highly nutritious plant-based protein.
“Thanks to this advanced process, we are able to tap into the hidden nutritional potential of barley, enabling us to offer not just another protein, but the best protein,” says Steffen Münch, Head of Research and Development at EverGrain. “What’s more, thanks to processing, we can do all of this on the land we already have – no additional acreage is needed to utilize all the nutrients stored in barley for the benefit of people and the planet.”
Commercial production of EverPro began in June of this year at EverGrain’s brand-new facility in St. Louis, Missouri, after years of research and development involving industry and academic experts.
The liquid separation and processing technology for the plant was supplied by Alfa Laval, which included six large decanters, reverse osmosis systems, valves, pumps and tank cleaning equipment.
EverGrain continues to focus on process optimization, and a pilot plant is currently being planned to develop measures to improve overall productivity while reducing water consumption.
Fine-tuning is essential in the fiercely competitive protein isolate market, and Alfa Laval is well positioned to provide EverGrain with technical expertise going forward,” says David King, director of food separation for Alfa Laval USA.
“We have decades of expertise in separation, evaporation and membranes. We can help them become as technologically advanced and commercially viable as they can be by supporting them with our services and expertise around the world.
This is just the beginning of their journey.” AB InBev’s global reach means that EverGrain truly has the ability to feed the world – to take inedible waste that was previously dried and sold as animal feed and turn it into quality protein.”