6 Beyond animal feed?
The valorisation of brewers’
spent grain
Simon Bolwig, Michael Spjelkavik Mark,
Maaike Karlijn Happel and Andreas Brekke
6.1 Introduction
The beer brewing industry has long been considered somewhat bio- circular
since the major part of its organic side- stream, spent grain, returns to the biological system in the form of animal feed. In many places, spent grain has
historically been given away free to farmers as livestock feed, especially for
cattle. In terms of environmental sustainability, this can be a good management choice for the bio- economy, placing it between ‘recycle’ and ‘reuse’ in
the waste pyramid (see Chapter 3). However, the fast deterioration of
untreated spent grain requires the presence of local farmers as well as good
transport infrastructure. Yet, according to Statistics Norway and Statistics
Denmark since the 1980s, the number of farms has declined by 60% in
Norway and Denmark, making the disposal of spent grain potentially more
expensive and complicated. In addition, giving spent grain to farmers brings
little or no revenues to breweries and prevents further valorisation of this
resource. Globally, brewers produce about 38.6 million tons of spent grain a
year (Lynch, Steffen & Arendt, 2016; Mussatto, 2014); so a change in spent
grain management could therefore have significant environmental and economic impacts.
The large quantities of spent grain, along with an increasing interest in
organic waste valorisation and circular bioeconomy, have spurred interest in
developing new valorisation pathways as an alternative to the traditional use
of spent grain as animal feed. Spent grain has a high protein content and other
nutritional assets, and research projects have shown that it can be used as a
feedstock in various industries, including livestock feed, food and nutrition,
chemicals, pharmaceuticals and biofuels (Buffington, 2014; Mussatto, 2014;
Thomas & Rahman, 2006). Yet, despite this technical potential, scholars have
identified few examples of advanced uses of spent grain on an industrial scale
(Aliyu & Bala, 2011; Mussatto, 2014), suggesting low levels of the deployment of research results.
Bugge, Hansen and Klitkou (2016) and Chapter 2 in this book identify
different visions and perspectives on the bioeconomy: the biotechnology
vision, the bio- resource vision and the bio- ecology vision. In this context,
The valorisation of brewers’
spent grain
Simon Bolwig, Michael Spjelkavik Mark,
Maaike Karlijn Happel and Andreas Brekke
6.1 Introduction
The beer brewing industry has long been considered somewhat bio- circular
since the major part of its organic side- stream, spent grain, returns to the biological system in the form of animal feed. In many places, spent grain has
historically been given away free to farmers as livestock feed, especially for
cattle. In terms of environmental sustainability, this can be a good management choice for the bio- economy, placing it between ‘recycle’ and ‘reuse’ in
the waste pyramid (see Chapter 3). However, the fast deterioration of
untreated spent grain requires the presence of local farmers as well as good
transport infrastructure. Yet, according to Statistics Norway and Statistics
Denmark since the 1980s, the number of farms has declined by 60% in
Norway and Denmark, making the disposal of spent grain potentially more
expensive and complicated. In addition, giving spent grain to farmers brings
little or no revenues to breweries and prevents further valorisation of this
resource. Globally, brewers produce about 38.6 million tons of spent grain a
year (Lynch, Steffen & Arendt, 2016; Mussatto, 2014); so a change in spent
grain management could therefore have significant environmental and economic impacts.
The large quantities of spent grain, along with an increasing interest in
organic waste valorisation and circular bioeconomy, have spurred interest in
developing new valorisation pathways as an alternative to the traditional use
of spent grain as animal feed. Spent grain has a high protein content and other
nutritional assets, and research projects have shown that it can be used as a
feedstock in various industries, including livestock feed, food and nutrition,
chemicals, pharmaceuticals and biofuels (Buffington, 2014; Mussatto, 2014;
Thomas & Rahman, 2006). Yet, despite this technical potential, scholars have
identified few examples of advanced uses of spent grain on an industrial scale
(Aliyu & Bala, 2011; Mussatto, 2014), suggesting low levels of the deployment of research results.
Bugge, Hansen and Klitkou (2016) and Chapter 2 in this book identify
different visions and perspectives on the bioeconomy: the biotechnology
vision, the bio- resource vision and the bio- ecology vision. In this context,