Scaling up our upcycled flavours

We keep hitting milestones and last year we scaled up our circular banana flavour (1 ton scale). This flavour is produced from two side-streams and has lower carbon footprint than counterparts. We are excited to demonstrate that our product can be produced at scale!

Here you can read more about it from our development expert Paco Caparros:

Hello, I am Paco Caparros, and I am going to tell you about our first pilot-demo production of banana flavour. I joined Greencovery 3 years ago, to work in an interesting project: production of banana flavour from industrial (food) side streams.
We were able to grow the project from the Find to Demo production:

During previous years, we developed the concept from the initial process parameters at lab scale and a full techno-economic evaluation for the different scenarios of implementation. We also tested the product properties and process parameters at a small scale during our sample generation project (1L). This was done inside the framework of a Food2020 project.
The sample received positive feedback from the market, especially because of the outstanding organoleptic properties and the estimated reduction in carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide reduction comes from using locally available streams (in Europe) which reduces waste and transportation.
With this valuable feedback, we decided to produce a larger volume of ingredient and validate the process models at a larger scale.

The first step was to find a partner that could help us with this operation which was a 500x increase in volume compared to our previous production size. We are glad that we contacted the Bioprocess Pilot Facility (BPF) in Delft. The BPF is an unique open access facility where companies and knowledge institutions can scale up their process.
At larger scale, there are additional expectations, risk, stakeholders and planning involved. We were lucky to have the support from a talented team at the BPF: Raimo van der Linden, Rob Verlinden, Vincent de Ruijter and Marko Kuiper. They took care of developing a processing plan for the demo trial, transferring the analysis protocols, and scheduling the shift operations for 6 days.
The production went through with some challenges (AKA learning opportunities) and the communication between our team and BPF was essential to find solutions and move forward. We are glad with the positive results, and the production of our first batch in the cubic meters scale with:
– No off-taste found in the produced sample
– Very high conversion yields of our raw materials
We want to thank the BPF team for them for the support and great collaboration of the BPF team for thinking along during planning and execution: Raimo, Rob, Vincent, Marko and operators team. Also to the other partners involved in the project.

We are looking forward to the industrial implementation of this solution together with our partners and helping reduce our environmental footprint while producing low carbon upcycled ingredients. Thanks to Peter van der Schaft and Lara Adamson from Axxence Aromatics GmbH, and Patricia Surendonk and Ger Wessel from the Burg Group B.V. for working with us on this successful adventure.

The project was subsidized by the European Union and the European Regional Development Fund (EFRO) in the program Kansen voor Weest.