Creating healthful products from spent brewers' barley

This new company takes saved barley grain from brewing and creates nutritious protein and fiber ingredient products

EverGrain Ingredients takes spent/saved brewers’ barley and turns it into wholesome and nutritious protein and fiber products, with what’s left over, going to animal nutrition. Photo courtesy of EverGrain Ingredients

*Greg Belt is founder and CEO of EverGrain Ingredients, five years in the making, and officially launched on January 7, 2021. Photo courtesy of EverGrain Ingredients*

It used to be that spent brewers’ grain was often fed directly to the animals. But, now there’s an in-between. A new company called EverGrain Ingredients, and backed by Anheuser-Busch InBev, takes the spent/saved barley grain from breweries and turns it into useful protein and fiber ingredients for food and beverage products. Once EverGrain is finished with the spent grain, the remainder is processed for animal nutrition—so no waste.

The R&D team at EverGrain, along with Founder and CEO Greg Belt, devised the system that transforms what would have been strictly animal feed into healthful ingredients. This process in optimizing and repurposing the used barley has consumed five years of rigorous R&D. And Belt is no stranger to sustainability, having spent nearly nine years at Anheuser-Busch InBev in sustainability and innovation. He also has prior experience at Emerson in procurement and supply chain.

“Our unique barley ingredients will transform plant-based products, delivering better tasting and more nutritious options to consumers who seek a healthier and more sustainable future,” says CEO Greg Belt. “EverGrain’s innovative and circular approach, which we’ve honed over the past five years, offers a scalable, local and reliable solution for the global food industry to help address the world’s food security and sustainability challenges.”

“AB InBev is proud to support such a remarkable, purpose-driven venture with a mission to create incredible ingredients to nourish the world through the transformative power of circularity,” says Tony Milikin, chief sustainability and procurement officer, Anheuser-Busch InBev. “EverGrain marks an important milestone in our ultimate goal of building a better world as we look to the next 100 years and beyond.”

With this launch, EverGrain is commercializing its first generation of nutrient-rich, ancient-grain products to market, EverPro™ and EverVita™. Both product lines are highly versatile and can be used across a wide range of food products. EverPro, a fully soluble protein isolate, is currently being formulated in multiple plant-based protein products, including beverages, protein bars and snacks. EverVita, barley fibers and proteins with minimal starch, are being used as a single solution to boost the nutrition and gut health benefits of baked goods, pasta and snacks without affecting taste and texture.

EverGrain seeks to partner with some of the world’s leading organizations as they turn to barley as an essential ingredient that will provide more nutritional value to consumers worldwide.

“Plant-based proteins have been an important health trend for over a decade,” says Jeffrey Brams, GC & VP R&D for Garden of Life, LLC. “But for many new consumers coming into these categories, their motivation is no longer just their personal health and wellbeing, but more broadly their environmental concerns and commitment to sustainable practices and companies. EverGrain is an exciting and important step forward for the entire plant-based protein marketplace. As a ‘circular’ project, there’s no additional land or energy needed to grow EverGrain, and minimal water and energy are required to transform this nutritionally dense barley source into an exciting new plant protein.”

“At Puratos, our ambition is to accelerate the transformation of our industry,” says Frederik Lievens, group products director. “EverGrain’s barley offers a unique plant-based protein and fiber option that doesn’t require additional land, saves water, and lowers a product’s overall carbon footprint. At Puratos we are working with EverGrain to develop the ingredient technology that will allow bakeries to make great tasting, nutritious and sustainable breads featuring barley ingredients in line with consumer preferred texture and freshness expectations.”

EverGrain ingredients are currently available in products such as Take Two, a plant-based barley milk line. The company also has multiple product launches with commercial partners planned that will reach shelves in both the United States and Europe in the first quarter of fiscal year 2021.

For more information, visit EverGrain’s website. Visit Greg Belt at LinkedIn.

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Wayne Labs has more than 30 years of editorial experience in industrial automation. He served as senior technical editor for I&CS/Control Solutions magazine for 18 years where he covered software, control system hardware and sensors/transmitters. Labs ran his own consulting business and contributed feature articles to Electronic Design, Control, Control Design, Industrial Networking and Food Engineering magazines. Before joining Food Engineering, he served as a senior technical editor for Omega Engineering Inc. Labs also worked in wireless systems and served as a field engineer for GE’s Mobile Communications Division and as a systems engineer for Bucks County Emergency Services. In addition to writing technical feature articles, Wayne covers FE’s Engineering R&D section.