Businesses Awarded £200k for Sustainable Food and Drink Innovation
Growing Kent & Medway's Business Sustainability Challenge has awarded grants totaling £200,000 to six innovative local businesses, aimed at promoting sustainability in the food and drink sectors.
Grants worth between £10,000 and £50,000 have been awarded to allow the businesses to undertake short-term, high-impact, and innovative projects.
Each project aims to address a specific challenge leading to a commercial, yet environmentally sustainable solution, for local plant-based food and drink supply chains.
The businesses are led by a fascinating group of entrepreneurs, including a part-time PhD student, a kitchen-based producer of South Indian takeaway cuisine, and a group of microbiologists and plant scientists.
These initiatives not only focus on technological and economic advancements but also emphasise social value, fostering a more sustainable future for the region.
These are the second round of projects supported by the Business Sustainability Challenge. Further information on previous projects can be found here.
Corona Packaging Ltd
Incorporating seaweed into plastic blends for sustainable fresh produce packaging
Coronex is a startup packaging manufacturer that produces reusable food packaging for the takeaway and ready-meal markets in the UK. They aim to produce innovative and sustainable packaging solutions for a diverse range of food industries.
To achieve this, Coronex will undertake a feasibility study to review the current production of fresh fruit and vegetable packaging and will assess the potential of incorporating more sustainable alternative raw materials in punnet manufacturing. They will trial the mixing of seaweed into plastic blends, which has the potential to significantly reduce the carbon emissions associated with the food packaging manufacturing process.
Our grant of £50,000 will allow Coronex to purchase the raw ingredients for these blending mix trials, including half a tonne of seaweed. The grant will also support Coronex in working with industry experts, who will help develop the material formulation and product design to suit Coronex’s packaging requirements.
Coronex intends to exhibit at events around Kent & Medway to showcase the products developed during this project, and to share the process of developing more sustainable packaging with other manufacturers in the local food packaging industry.
Collaborators: W B Chambers Farms Ltd, Machere Ltd
Essel Innovation & Development Services Ltd
Developing sustainable packaging solutions from brewers' spent grain
Essel Innovation & Development Services specialises in offering tasty, distinctive, and healthy South Indian cuisine in the Maidstone area. They aim to create sustainable, environmentally friendly products that contribute to the circular economy while providing an exceptional customer experience.
Sourcing sustainable packaging is a significant barrier to achieving this aim. Therefore, Essel is embarking on a project to develop bespoke packaging solutions from brewers' spent grain. By utilising a by-product of the brewing process, Essel intends to reduce waste and emissions produced by both the brewing and food industries.
Our funding of £43,300 will allow Essel to purchase the raw ingredients required to produce sustainable packaging from brewer's spent grain. The grant will also support the process of optimising the packaging for takeaway South Indian cuisine, comprehensive safety testing, and the manufacturing process.
It's important to Essel that this project provides social value to their community in the Maidstone area. They intend to commit a significant amount of time to community outreach, education, and collaboration with local organisations. For example, Essel is keen to educate local students and South Asian community groups on entrepreneurship and the benefits of circularity.
Collaborators: Goacher’s Brewery Ltd
Fermenti Ltd
Producing fermented snacks from rescued fruits and vegetables
Fermenti is a gut health snack startup that has developed a fermented fruit macaron aimed at supporting digestive wellness. Their products are created using a combination of traditional fermentation and freeze-drying techniques, resulting in both pre- and probiotic snacks containing billions of live microorganisms per portion.
The company aims to develop a new range of functional snacks by fermenting rescued fruits, vegetables, and byproducts from the food manufacturing process. Through this product development project, they intend to reduce food waste by collaborating with an existing manufacturer, Nim's Crisps. Additionally, they will investigate more energy-efficient drying methods and sustainable packaging options.
Our funding of £24,800 will enable Fermenti to develop a new product using ingredients rescued from the food manufacturing process. The grant will also facilitate collaboration with Nim's Crisps and the laboratory testing of new products for their nutritional and health-beneficial properties.
To ensure this project provides both social and economic value in the Kent & Medway area, Fermenti is interested in providing fermentation workshops in schools. These workshops will educate local pupils about the gut microbiome and the health benefits of fermented foods.
Collaborators: Nim’s Fruit Ltd
Inspro Ltd
Transforming food waste into animal feed and fertiliser using black soldier fly larvae
Inspro aims to reduce food ‘waste’ by transforming it into sustainable animal feed and natural fertiliser using black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) larvae. These larvae efficiently consume large amounts of organic matter and excrete frass: a nutrient-rich, low-runoff, low-emissions fertiliser. Once the larvae have matured, they can be fed to poultry, wild birds, hedgehogs, and fish as an alternative protein source.
Inspro will provide local regenerative farms and smallholdings with their own in-house bioconversion units, including instructions and neonates (recently hatched fly eggs). This will allow businesses to minimise their food waste by converting it to frass to fertilise their crops. Inspro will then compare the performance of several crops grown with frass to those produced using conventional techniques.
Our grant of £22,800 will allow Inspro to provide several bioconversion units to farms and smallholdings in Kent, free of charge. This grant will also support the analysis of the nutritional content and safety of the frass produced at the University of Kent, as well as its effectiveness as a fertiliser for horticultural crops.
Inspro intends to share the benefits of this project by donating a bioconversion kit to a local welfare and petting farm. This kit would enable them to sustainably convert their food waste and educate visitors about the benefits of circularity in the horticultural and food sectors.
Collaborator: Wanstall Holdings Ltd is a regeneration farm with layer and broiler hens. Director Doug Wanstall will grow crops, including pak choi, for the frass trial in their polytunnel and market garden.
PlantWorks Limited
Developing low-cost bioreactors for beneficial microbe production in agriculture
PlantWorks is pioneering the use of beneficial microbes in agriculture, horticulture, and gardening. They are the UK's only mass producer of mycorrhizal fungi, which improve plants' ability to gather resources from the soil. PlantWorks produces a range of products that incorporate mycorrhizal fungi and beneficial bacteria, with the aim of improving soil health and reducing reliance on inorganic fertilisers, while remaining cost-effective.
PlantWorks aims to develop low-cost modular rocking bioreactors to increase their production capacity for plant-growth promoting rhizobacteria. By adapting technologies developed by the pharmaceutical industry, they intend to reduce the cost of rhizobacteria production, develop crop-specific, multi-species blends, and meet market demands.
Our funding of £46,100 will allow PlantWorks to scale up these bioreactors, based on their successful prototypes. This grant will also facilitate testing the reactors' capacity to consistently produce a range of bacteria and the process of optimising production for each species.
PlantWorks aims to provide additional value to the community by hosting training sessions for growers and agronomists at their facilities. These sessions will educate agricultural and horticultural stakeholders on the environmental and yield benefits of incorporating microbes into their production systems.
RUBISKO Ltd
Optimising resource allocation in indoor farming with data management platforms
RUBISKO creates bespoke data and operations management platforms for indoor and vertical farming systems. They aim to support sustainable agriculture by streamlining data infrastructure, allowing businesses to optimise resource allocation. This could lead to more efficient use of resources, including water and fertilisers, minimising waste while increasing yields and reducing the environmental impact of indoor farming.
To further this aim, RUBISKO will be working with indoor farms located in Kent and around the UK. They will build an understanding of the needs of these businesses through site visits and interviews, and will develop bespoke software in collaboration with key stakeholders. This software will be tailored to the requirements of each business and will be iteratively improved with their feedback.
Our grant of £12,500 will support the development of this software, allowing RUBISKO to offer subsidised rates to three new clients. The grant will also enable RUBISKO to visit these businesses and host workshops to collaborate with stakeholders on the development of bespoke systems that aim to improve their productivity and sustainability.
To ensure this project provides social, as well as economic, value to the Kent & Medway area, RUBISKO intends to provide workshops for local students. These would go beyond educating young people on the benefits of sustainable indoor farming and would aim to inspire students to consider a career in software development, data science, or business operations.