OB Beer to Develop Various Foods Using Beer Byproducts

Natalie Borges, Vice President of OB Beer Purchasing and Sustainability (left), and Min Myung-jun, CEO of Reharvest (right), are taking a photo after signing a win-win agreement for the beer byproduct upcycling business.

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Saeng-hye] OB Beer is embarking on the development of various food products using beer by-products as raw materials.

OB Beer announced on the 20th that it signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for food development and commercialization using beer by-products with the food startup Reharvest at its headquarters in Samseong-dong, Seoul.

Reharvest, which has formed a strategic partnership with OB Beer, is a domestic emerging venture specializing in food upcycling. Food upcycling refers to adding value to by-products naturally generated during the food manufacturing process to transform them into high value-added products.

Through this agreement, the two companies will jointly cooperate to develop and commercialize convenient meal replacements such as energy bars, granola, and cereals by utilizing by-products naturally generated during the beer production process. The energy bar made by Reharvest from Sikhye by-product Sikhye-bak has already proven its potential as a product by exceeding its crowdfunding goal by more than 2000% twice on the crowdfunding platform Wadiz. Sikhye and beer share barley as the main ingredient, and the soaking process before fermentation is similar, with the by-products having almost identical components.

OB Beer discovered the emerging venture Reharvest through the 4th Global Startup Meetup Program held by the Seoul Business Agency (SBA) and Seoul Creative Economy Innovation Center in November last year to provide collaboration opportunities between domestic emerging ventures and large corporations, and formed a partnership based on a win-win strategy.

Natalie, Vice President of Purchasing and Sustainability at OB Beer, said, “With this agreement, we have established a foundation to develop and commercialize various foods such as energy bars, granola, and cereals using beer by-products,” adding, “In particular, we expect to contribute to solving environmental and social issues based on win-win cooperation with domestic emerging ventures.”

Until now, brewers’ spent grains, which naturally come out during beer production and are rich in nutrients such as protein and fiber, were difficult to use as food ingredients due to regulations. The Liquor Tax Act restricted liquor manufacturers from producing anything other than alcoholic beverages.

However, with the revision of related notifications, from July 1st, production of non-alcoholic products in liquor manufacturing facilities has been permitted. Beer spent grains have been recognized as food, paving the way for their use as raw materials for energy bars and health foods. For liquor companies, this opens the door to diversifying businesses utilizing beer by-products.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.