Projects
Barley Protein Isolate from Brewers Spent Grain
COMPLETED 2020
At Zea10 LLC, the precursor to Apparo, we saw the opportunity to harvest protein from Spent Brewers Grains, the barley material left after the extraction of the starch and sugars. Our team successfully developed a process to extract barley protein into a fully soluble, great tasting barley protein isolate ingredient.
Together with a strategic investor, AB InBev, the process was successfully installed and commercialized at their St. Louis, MO brewery.
Our team developed the concept, completed a pre-market validation, developed, tested, designed and scaled the process.
The fully soluble barley protein isolate (EverPro®) is commercially available from Evergrain Ingredients.
EverPro® & EverGrain® are registered trademarks of AB InBev SA/NV.
Sunflower Oil + High Protein Flour: Intermediate TCU™ Process
Kenya, in East Africa, has active government programs to reduce the importation of vegetable oil and to improve the nutrition profile of its staple foods. The Kenyan government is promoting the sunflower crop for oil production, while also advocating for the fortification of local flour sources with higher protein ingredients to meet these goals.
Early in 2024, we initiated an Intermediate TCU™ project to better utilize the growing Kenyan sunflower crop. Together with Kenyan partners in agriculture and the food industry, our project processes sunflowers to produce oil plus a nutritious high protein flour. This replaces the current process, the traditional production of oil and a low grade animal feed. The protein flour will meet the governments fortification requirements of the local flours, improving the level of nutrition for the Kenyan population.
Sunflower Protein Isolates: Advanced TCU™ Process
Our goal is to fully exploit the powerful nutrition of the sunflower seed. we extract two protein isolates, a nutritional antioxidant, and a protein concentrate. In doing so we maximize the Human Nutritional Value of the seed as well as it’s financial returns. This process has the potential to disrupt sunflower seed processing as it is currently operating, a business that focuses only on oil yield. Our Advanced TCU™ processing generates more value for the processor, is a boon to food formulators, and is better for the planet.
