With its high protein and fibre content, brewer's grain can be used to support a balanced diet and increased well-being - "but hardly anyone knows what brewer's grain actually is," says Geisenheim alumnus Maximilian Grimm. He aims to change this with his start-up company, Good Crop. Together with his cousin Moritz Wiest and Julius Wenzel he is developing and distributing smoothies on the basis of brewer's grain. "In principle, we are producing a drink from waste material", is how he describes this "upcycling" concept, given that brewer's grain is the solid residue left after the processing of germinated and dried cereal grains (malt) in the production of beer.
Grimm's drink, which has been available online and in selected food retail stores since fall of last year, consists of 35 percent brewers grain. The drink also contains only organically grown fruit. "We only use locally grown and not exotic fruits with long transport routes," said the former Geisenheim student. "The smoothie is not only good for your physical health, but also for the environment. We attach great importance to that." The beverage, containing no added sugar, also has just about half as many calories as juice. For this reason, its target group includes gyms as well as people interested in a healthy diet.
Grimm already had the idea of using brewer's grain as the basis for a smoothie when he was studying for his Master's degree in Beverage Technology at Hochschule Geisenheim University. He and his fellow student Benedikt Meinung won third prize with a lemonade based on brewer's grain that they entered in the TROPHELIA competition for innovative and sustainable food products in 2016.
The road to a market-ready dietary fibre smoothie was nevertheless long. The young entrepreneurs went from door to door all over the country in search of a brewery partner that would give them the chance to process the spent grains directly on site. Then last summer, Grimm and his colleagues finally got the go-ahead to set up their plant at a large Southern German brewery, "right in the middle of the brewhouse". Over a period of three weeks, tanks, pipes, pumps and grinding equipment were tested and pressure, temperature and grinding cycles were optimized. Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Michael Ludwig from the Beverage Technology Center (GTZ) and Dr. Claus-Dieter Patz from the Beverage Research Department at Hochschule Geisenheim University "were always at hand to advise" the young entrepreneurs.
Looking back over the summer, Grimm says, "it was fun getting one step closer to our goal every day." Not even temperatures of 35 to 40 degrees Celsius and almost 100 percent humidity in the brewhouse could dampen their spirits. The best moment was when pallets with the first 10,000 bottles were loaded onto the delivery truck.
The initial reaction by customers to the smoothies available in two flavors, apple-rhubarb and raspberry-blueberry, has been positive, says Grimm. But he also knows that start-ups in the food industry do not have it easy. Nevertheless, self-employment is an attractive prospect for the winemaker's son from Geisenheim. Plus, he is convinced that "brewer's grain has such a high nutritional value" and that there are many other ways to utilize this by-product in the food industry. However, before he explores this further, he is going to see to it that his fibre-based smoothies ensure brewer's grain becomes a socially acceptable food product.
