US start-up upcycles plant-based milk waste to develop oat flour

02 Sep 2020 --- The upcycled food movement is growing more prominent as brands come under intense scrutiny on their environmental and ethical credentials. Transforming waste streams into value-added, premium ingredients is on the rise. One of the latest moves is from Renewal Mill, specializing in “oat okara” – a nutritious flour made from the oat pulp leftover when oat milk is made.

Fighting food waste and keeping more affordable nutrition in the supply chain are key drivers for start-ups like Renewal Mill which uses a proprietary production process on a wide range of byproducts, but says it is the first to target the byproducts of plant-based milk production.

“Global challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic have spotlighted the need for a more resilient food system that prioritizes people and the planet,” notes Claire Schlemme, Co-Founder and CEO of Renewal Mill.

The company primarily works with pulps such as soybean pulp, oat pulp and almond pulp. These are dried and milled without using synthetic processing techniques or unnatural fortification to produce nutritious ingredients that are rich in macronutrients including fiber and protein.

Cookies by Renewal Mill.Renewal Mill’s process can be applied to “many of the billions of tons of byproducts produced each year.” The company has “worked with everything,” from carrot pulp to vanilla bean pulp in its R&D kitchen.

“As I grew older, I began to understand how these two favorite things of mine – food and nature – are inextricably linked. I first came face-to-face with food waste when I co-founded Boston’s first organic juice company. At the end of each day, we were left with a mountain of nutritious produce pulp. We knew that throwing away this pulp was a waste of the resources used to grow the fruits and vegetables, but we just didn’t have a solution,” continues Schlemme.

“I founded Renewal Mill as the next-generation ingredients company that upcycled byproducts, like okara, into high quality ingredients and keeps valuable nutrition in the supply chain. And okara is just the beginning. There’s a world full of other byproducts just waiting for their day in the sun.”

Crowdfunding upcycled waste
In recent moves, Renewal Mill has launched a crowdinvesting campaign with the platform Republic. To date, it has raised more than US$1.7 million and will keep the crowdfunding round open until the end of November.

“By crowdfunding, we’re turning our customers into investors, giving them a direct hand in building a more [environmentally] sustainable food future for us all,” adds Schlemme.

Baked goods by Renewal Mill.The Republic campaign will help fund the commercialization of the company’s oat okara ingredient, as well as the expansion of its “just add water and oil” vegan, upcycled baking mixes. It previously raised seed funding to commercialize organic okara flour.

Renewal Mill was an inaugural participant in the Techstars Farm to Fork accelerator, the Barilla-backed Good Food Makers program, and the Food Systems 6 accelerator.

Since its founding in 2016, Renewal Mill’s ingredients have been used in products by companies like Pulp Pantry, Humphry Slocombe and Tia Lupita Foods. The start-up has also grown its own-branded product line, currently sold in retailers including Good Eggs, Imperfect Foods, Misfits Market and Whole Foods.

“By crowdfunding, we’re turning our customers into investors, giving them a direct hand in building a more sustainable food future for us all,” says Schlemme.

Upcycling, the new recycling
Upcycling has been coined “the new recycling” by Innova Market Insights within its 2020 Top Trend of “The Sustain Domain.” It holds great potential across a range of waste streams, from used coffee grounds for car parts to fish waste for nutritional ingredients.

Upcycling has become such an industry buzzword that the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) awarded 12 laureates of its 2019 Food Accelerator Network (EIT FAN) program within this space.

Following an investigation of over a decade, recent research has found that adding peanut skins can boost milk chocolate’s antioxidant properties while upcycling waste streams. Notably, these additions did not affect the texture or taste of the confection.

While developing biodegradable food packaging from upcycled cheese whey and almond shells, EU-funded project YPACK has found that integrating zinc oxide and oregano essential oil helps the bio-papers protect against bacterial contamination in food packaging.

From an experimental scientific point of view, Cargill and Renmatix teamed up to explore a novel approach for upcycling a broad range of plant biomasses. The partnership intends to convert unused plant materials into highly functional food ingredients that can be used across multiple categories, from baked goods to dairy, soups, sauces and meat products.

Canadian company Wize Monkey has formulated its business model around the upcycling of prunings from the arabica coffee plant to create a tea product that is similar to black tea in its flavor profile and offers a “light and steady” caffeine (20mg per 8oz) kick. 

Meanwhile, in the food retail sector, the app and social disrupter Too Good To Go allows European consumers to purchase a “Magic Box” with a surprise assortment of food products from participating supermarkets, bakeries and grocery stores that would have otherwise been thrown away.

By Benjamin Ferrer