Brewery waste streams: potential for upcycling

Summer student Sian Menson

this project was a recipient of Food Waste Innovation’s seed funding for 2021. Summer student Sian Menson will conduct the research under the supervision of Dr. Graham Eyres.

In the brewing industry, tonnes of brewing by-products are produced every day as a result of beer production in the form of spent grain, hop slurry and yeast. Currently, most by-products head down the drain or to farms as livestock feed, but this project wants to change that to apply innovation and transform this waste into something valuable. There is great opportunity in these by-products, which are all dense in nutrients with spent grain having huge amounts of fibre, hops having many antioxidant properties and yeast being rich in protein. Working with Emerson’s Brewery, the aim of this project is to map and quantify these by-products, to look at how to reduce how much is wasted and to look at how they can be transformed into nutritious food products through upcycling.