Feed pioneers seek to get more out of whisky waste
Two companies using whisky industry by-products to develop ingredients for salmon feed are among three that are teaming up to extract even more value from distillery waste streams.
They will collaborate in the Whisky Project, which is led by the Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre (IBioIC).
The companies will work with IBioIC to explore further ways to extract maximum value from whisky co-products such as draff, the husk residue left from fermentation, and pot ale, the liquid remaining after the first distillation.
Omega-3 and protein
MiAlgae uses the nitrates and phosphates in wastewater from the whisky-making process as a feed stock for omega-3-rich microalgae and saves distillers to cost of cleaning the water.
Heriot Watt University spin-out company Horizon Proteins has developed a patented technology to separate the protein content of pot ale, which is nutritionally perfect for fish feed, from other components which are anti-nutritional or harmful.
The third company, BioPower Technologies, currently makes flour from draff, and will now investigate the use of the liquid created in the process to see if it will be a beneficial product for use by Horizon Proteins and MiAlgae. BioPower will also carry out new investigations into the use of pot ale.
Extensive research
The project requires each of the companies to carry out extensive research and they will each have access to IBioIC’s FlexBio laboratory facilities at Heriot Watt to integrate, test, refine and evaluate commercial processes of extracting proteins and carbohydrates to maximise the value from using the same feedstock for each.
FlexBio scientists will also support the companies with their work and the Scotch Whisky Research Institute (SWRI) will provide anonymised whisky co-product samples from distilleries to support the processes and trials.
The project is being co-funded by Zero Waste Scotland, with additional support from SWRI.
Serious potential
Mark Bustard, chief executive of IBioIC, said: “This is an exciting new project with serious potential to create high value biobased products from a low value co-product. We are driving support for the growth of the bioeconomy, and this is a tremendous example of how we can add significant benefit with a circular approach to co-products.”
In January, MiAlgae announced that it had received £1 million from investors to focus on commercialisation of its product. Its process uses the nitrates and phosphates in wastewater from the whisky-making process as a feed stock for algae and saves distillers to cost of cleaning the water.
MiAlgae estimates that one tonne of its algae would save up to 30 tonnes of wild fish from going into aquafeed.
Demonstrator plant
The company, which has 18 staff including founder and managing director Douglas Martin, is currently working on scaling up its process from a 1,000-litre pilot plant to a full-size 30,000-litre demonstrator plant to prove to both distilleries and feed producers that it is a credible partner.
Horizon Proteins has now been fully commercialised through the Scottish Enterprise High Growth Spin-Out programme and has already run process-scale trials at several distilleries and processing plants, while also running feed trials with salmon.
