2025-01-23 05:24:26
REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE — IT’S MORE THAN JUST A SET OF WASTE MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES; IT’S ALSO HOW SMART COMPANIES ARE DIALING BACK THEIR ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT, REDUCING PRODUCTION COSTS AND EVEN CREATING ENTIRELY NEW PRODUCTS.
Some people look at a pile of old, torn up and discarded children’s books and see trash. Ryan Jude Novelline sees art. The Italian- American fashion designer constructed his “Golden Book Gown” (pictured) from the pages and gold foil spines of discarded Little Golden Books sewn together with golden thread.
For years, we have been told to reduce, reuse and recycle, reimagining our trash into newly useful treasure. For artists like Novelline, the slogan inspired beautiful objects. For alt-meat companies struggling to thrive within a difficult economic environment, living the conservationist motto lends credence to their sustainability bona fides while simultaneously lifting up the bottom line.
For some companies, that means creating entire product lines from discarded or underused ingredients. For others, it’s about upcycling a sidestream from production to decrease waste and increase revenue. In every case, it means living your principles, striving to do better and being a good steward of the environment while also being a good steward of the business.
Art, of course, is subjective, but we’d argue that a big plate of Planetarians ribs or a snack of All Y’all’s plant-based jerky is a beautiful thing — just as beautiful as any upcycled couture gown.
BRETT CHRISTOFFEL
CEO, ALL Y’ALLS FOODS
All Y'alls Foods is a mission- driven, plant-based proteins company. We make a line of jerkies as well as tasty toppers, which include bacon-y bits.
In terms of reusing side streams, my production partner uses side streams. We use some of them in our retail packaging. The production partner also uses some of the smaller bits that don’t end up in our product in a couple of their offerings, so we’re eliminating waste that way, as well.
And when it comes to packaging, we're not using packaging machines; we buy pre-made bags. That allows us to eliminate any issues, like printing errors, that go along with producing your own packaging. We just make sure that we order the right quantities, so that we're not left with a bunch of them left over if we reformulate or make changes on the bags. We are thoughtful when it comes to how we use everything and making the most of everything.
I got into this because I realized I love a cow like I love a dog. My chief reason is to leave animals out of the food system because they’re not required for us to get all the protein we need. And sustainability is also important to me: When it comes to our proteins, we use less than 10% of the land, fuel and water compared to conventional beef protein.
YONATAN GOLAN
CEO, BREVEL
Brevel provides protein as an ingredient for the food industry. It is flavor-neutral, white, soluble and functional, and we can bring it basically at cost-parity with pea and soy protein. We produce it from microalgae in a unique, proprietary technology we developed, which basically combines fermentation and light in a single process, to create biomass.
Utilizing side streams and minimizing waste is not only an environmental or ethical consideration; it’s core to our business model of achieving cost parity. As a company, we are aiming to get to cost parity with pea and soy, which is the benchmark of plant-based proteins in general. The path of getting there is not only through producing protein but also by producing a variety of other products from the biomass.
For example, if we have a kilogram of microalgae biomass and protein is the only product we can extract from it, there’s no chance we’ll get anywhere near price parity. But if we are able to extract the protein, extract valuable functional oils, extract soluble fibers, extract pigments — all things that are produced by the microalgae — then we can maximize the value and basically get to a point where, at least on paper, we can give the protein away for free and still be profitable enough from the rest of the biomass.
Basically, what we’re doing is not too different from what other companies are doing with soy protein. Soy protein is a side product of the soy oil industry. And if we want to get anywhere close to the cost of soy protein, we must be able to do the same.
This is true for any alternative protein source: To get the cost levels that are needed by the food industry and by consumers, you must be able to maximize value and extract and utilize all these other co-products or side streams.
The environmental benefits, as well, are part of our core values as a company. We came to this industry trying to solve this big challenge of sustainable nutrition, and we provide protein that can solve that challenge while also having a minimal footprint as a company. The business model and the values of the company are very much aligned.
NAYA MCCARTNEY
REGULATORY SAFETY SCIENTIST, VOW
We’ve been looking at things like the exosomes that are produced [during the cultivated meat process] and wondering, ‘Do they have applications in pharmaceuticals or cosmetics?’
We’ve been careful about it. Right now, it would be easy to turn our bioreactors to produce something that the cosmetics industry would love, for example, and we’d make a lot of money, but our core priority has always been producing meat.
So I’m not talking about taking a whole bioreactor and growing something else entirely. It’s more about maximizing these things we’re already producing. Like our spent media, for example; Could that be sold as a feed product or as a growth medium for algae?
We’re working with other businesses. For example, if there is a cosmetics company that’s interested in exosomes, we’ll say, ‘Here, try these.’ Vow wouldn’t be the frontman for these products; we want to be considered a food company.
TOM HEW
CHIEF DEVELOPMENT OFFICER, BASEFOOD
BaseFood is a manufacturer of plant-based alternative proteins based in Malaysia. Our focus is on high moisture extruded proteins. The technique more closely replicates the fibrous structure and moisture content of meat than soy flakes or other plant-based ingredients.
The challenge with this product, though, is handling it. Because it has such high moisture content, it spoils more rapidly. With our previous manufacturing technique, we had a spoilage rate of about 25% to 30%. For every thousand kilos we’d make, we’d lose about 330 kilos. That is a huge amount of waste. To avoid spoilage, it had to be kept frozen, which also had a huge cost.
We determined that the solution to high spoilage is to dehydrate the protein. As soon as it comes out of the extruder, we dehydrate the compound so it is stable. Once it's dehydrated, we don’t need to freeze it, and that saves energy. And by dehydrating, we’re also able to extend the shelf life from six months to two years.
But, of course, then the question is: How do you reconstitute the product? If it’s too difficult or expensive, then the protein has limited applications. So we had to develop a rehydration process that was simple to implement and easy to deploy.
For example, right now, we’re deploying a product in Sri Lanka. With our old method, the logistics were complicated and expensive. It’s quite impossible to ship a container of frozen product to Sri Lanka, try to find storage in a frozen warehouse and then have it sent around the country in frozen trucks.
But with our dehydration method, the product can be shipped from Malaysia to Sri Lanka, dry. There’s no need for special handling because when it reaches its destination, it can be rehydrated quickly in ambient temperature water, then flavored and cooked. We’ve eliminated waste and created a much more sustainable process.
ALEH MANCHULIANTSAU
CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, PLANETARIANS
We have a zero waste process. We’re upcycling by-products of vegetable oil extraction and beer into an alternative protein product.
I started working with wastestreams early in my food industry journey. I was developing a meal replacement shake, and protein was the most expensive element. Researching cheaper protein options, I discovered protein-rich byproducts, like soybean meal, that were 10 times cheaper than protein isolates.
A few years later, I was trying to increase the protein content of Planetarians meat analogue. I knew fermentation could increase the protein content, but fermentation is so expensive. I asked myself: How can we get the benefits without the risks?
We analyzed a lot of products and byproducts, and eventually we found that spent brewer’s yeast completed our equation. Yeast is the major source of the flavor and protein in our product. And because we have all of that inherent flavor coming from the yeast, we don’t need to add much to the product.
Spent yeast is an unavoidable byproduct of the beer brewing process, and it’s largely been considered a waste product until now — usually it either goes to a landfill or sometimes to animal feed producers. And the second main component is spent soybeans, another unavoidable byproduct of modern food production.
Basically, we are able to repurpose byproducts into functional ingredients that are beneficial for people and the planet, I ended up working on this product I thought doing something like this would be a great example for my three kids.
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WASTE NOT, WANT NOT
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