Major step forward in circular food processing
Greencovery aims to accelerate the transition of the food industry towards more sustainable ingredients derived from residual streams. To this end, the company has developed a technology to cost-effectively recover fibres, antioxidants, and organic fats and acids from residual streams within the food industry. In this way, a cost item—the processing of food waste—is transformed into an additional source of income, while also creating circular food processing.
That this technology is especially relevant to North Holland is no coincidence. After all, this is an important European region for the processing of food ingredients, where more than 350,000 tonnes of food-safe residual streams are generated annually. Large quantities of cocoa beans, for example, are processed here. The husks that remain afterwards are mostly incinerated. That is a waste, because new products can be extracted from them. Greencovery adds an extra circular component to this region by locally processing residual streams into functional ingredients instead of exporting them for low-value applications or waste processing.
To this end, Greencovery has developed a technology that enables it to convert cocoa husks on-site into three functional ingredients: hard cocoa fibres, cocoa extract and soluble cocoa fibres. And there is high demand for these, because they offer food manufacturers a reliable, cost-effective and sustainable alternative to cocoa in times of fluctuations in global cocoa prices.
This is what Greencovery will do with the investment
With this funding, the food tech company and a Dutch industrial partner will scale up their technology for the high-value processing of cocoa residual streams into valuable food ingredients. The next step is scaling up to an industrial capacity of 1,000 tonnes per year. In addition, Greencovery is working on an additional investment round of €3 million. Part of this has already been committed by existing and new investors. This capital will be used for large-scale commercial production and the supply of ingredients on a large scale.
That is why ROM InWest stepped in
Investment manager Lotte Nolten-van Hoek: “A lot is happening in North Holland in the field of agrifood innovations. We want to support those developments as effectively as possible. We are investing in Greencovery because the company contributes to the transition towards a circular and sustainable food system. The collaboration with a North Holland industrial food processor ensures an immediate impact and further strengthens the ecosystem in the region.”
