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.