A large brewery is looking into how to valorise the organic by-products of their production units, to maximise their value and minimise the environmental footprint.
1. Challenge
They have selected to start with Brewer’s Spent Grain (BSG), which is traditionally used as low-value livestock feed. When real-time logistics and processing capabilities are unavailable, a portion of it ends up in landfill.
Producing 100 liters of beer generates approximately 20 kg of BSG, which is rich in proteins, fibers, and fats.
Despite its nutritional value, BSG’s high moisture content poses significant challenges for storage and transport due to microbial spoilage risks. Drying BSG to reduce these risks introduces substantial costs, making the dried product uncompetitive with conventional lignocellulose residues if its value is not enhanced.
2. Solution
The Value Chain Generator® conducted a comprehensive analysis of the potential valorisation pathways for the brewery’s BSG to identify the most economically and environmentally optimal model.
The investigation revealed that based on the quantity and quality of the residual biomass, current supply chain, available technologies, local markets, and general economic and environmental impacts, converting the BSG into high-value products through insect bioconversion is the most optimal solution.
Exemplary visualisation of the identified optimal solution
Additionally, a potential buyer was identified in the VCG.AI’s network offering to off-take their BSG for a 42% higher price than it was currently sold for to use it in their insect bioconversion facility.
This valorisation pathway also improves the environmental footprint: for example, for a brewery producing 50,000 tonnes of residual BSG per year, the CO2e savings would increase from 3.200 tons with direct use for cattle feeding, to more than 116.000 tons. Additionally, the waste for landfills would be reduced to zero.
The VCG.AI’s analysis also provided financial estimates, including capital expenditure (CapEx) estimates, projected return on investment (ROI), and the impacts on climate and waste reduction.
It has additionally identified potential regional buyers for the end products, ensuring a market for the newly created materials. There is strong growth in demand for insect-based feed in the pet food (40 to 50%) and aquaculture (25 to 30%) sectors. The optimal end buyers were identified as local companies producing pet food.
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