Biofine Eco and FermCap Eco, are part of Kerry’s new Eco Range family of plant-based and sustainable brewing solutions. The company describes these as a collection of tools that are designed to help brewers create ‘consumer-friendly beers while reducing their impact on the environment’.

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Biofine Eco is an aid that greatly improves beer clarification, while FermCap Eco is a foam-control product that optimises process efficiency by increasing fermenter capacity, improving hop utilisation and eliminating overfoaming and beer waste. The products deliver significant benefits, the company says, providing clean, environmentally friendly and cost-saving solutions for brewers globally.

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Biofine Eco 

Biofine Eco is a new, innovative, allergen-free, plant-derived clarification aid that greatly improves beer clarification by delivering almost instant flocculation of yeast. It works well both with and without a centrifuge and has been developed as a chemical and allergen-free alternative to traditional clarification aids.

“Biofine Eco delivers a more compact yeast sedimentation, removes haze during the brewing process and is more economical to use. It is a natural, plant-based product that delivers two invaluable brand-building benefits: sustainability advances and the ability for brewers to produce beer with vegan-friendly claims,” a company spokesperson said.

Biofine Eco has been found to quickly reduce turbidity, outperforming traditional brewery fining options. It also improves beer recovery and enhances product quality. In its work to optimise process efficiencies, Biofine Eco leaves no impact on flavour or beer foam. It also produces a compact sediment that delivers easy cleaning and reduces the cost of disposal.

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FermCap Eco 

FermCap Eco is an innovative, plant-based, foam-control product that optimises process efficiencies, according to the company. It does this by increasing fermenter capacity, eliminating overfoaming, and enhancing hop utilisation, as well as improving beer foam stability. 

“It is compatible with crossflow membrane filtration and extends filter run length and membrane life significantly. It delivers up to a 15% increase in fermenter capacity versus untreated beer. When compared to traditional antifoam, FermCap Eco reduces cleaning-in-place (CIP) time and frequency, and allows longer filter run lengths without membrane fouling,” a company spokesperson said.

FermCap Eco is a processing aid that has been developed to be a more sustainable alternative to traditional silicon-based antifoam products, in particular when crossflow filtration is used. In addition to maximising fermentation vessel capacity and increasing CO2 recovery while reducing wort losses, FermCap Eco is not sensitive to cold temperature storage, and this feature provides an important logistical advantage for freight and storage in the Northern Hemisphere during colder months.

 

Egg-citing innovation 

Moving from brewing to baking, Kerry has recently produced an innovative enzyme solution that decreases the number of eggs needed in a wide variety of baking applications. Biobake EgR can replace up to 30% of egg requirement, enabling European manufacturers to make the switch from caged to free-range or organic eggs without facing increased costs.

This new enzyme system, according to Kerry, has been developed for baked goods manufacturers to address the rising raw material costs of eggs, and allows for a reduction in the quantity of egg used in recipes. It also provides a solution to regulatory concerns, with the European Commission due to propose legislation to phase out the use of cages in agriculture by 2027.

According to statistics published by EuroStat, the price of eggs in the European Union was 30% higher, on average, in January 2023 than in 2022, amid a steady rise in prices since January 2021. Supply-chain disruptions are the main reason for these cost increases, exacerbated by geopolitical instability, global widespread avian flu, drought and increasingly unpredictable/extreme weather conditions, plus general inflationary pressures. These factors have negatively impacted crop yields and applied financial pressure across the supply chain, creating challenges for producers and adding costs for the final consumer.

“Finding solutions to reduce carbon impact is an important sustainability consideration for manufacturers, driven increasingly by environmentally and ethically conscious consumers,” a company spokesperson said. 

“Biobake EgR is a sustainable solution that not only eases the switch away from caged eggs but also delivers potential CO2 emission savings of up to 14% when a 30%+ egg reduction is achieved.”

 

Egg importance

Eggs are a crucial ingredient for bakers because of their specific functional properties and unique contribution to finished product sensory attributes, e.g., texture, softness, crumb structure and taste. They also add such vital functions as binding, aeration, emulsification and colour. Reducing egg content in recipes is a challenging task because there are very few other natural ingredients that deliver the essential functional properties well enough to produce a high-quality finished product with optimal texture, volume and taste. This new product can deliver the functional properties of eggs in many different baking applications, and with no change to final product quality.

Jonathan Doyle, business development lead, enzymes, at Kerry, said: “The rising interest in egg-alternative solutions has been accelerated by geopolitical instability, egg-price volatility and the upcoming EU proposal on caged farming. Biobake EgR is a reliable and consistent egg-reduction performer that can enable the switch from caged to free-range or organic eggs in fine bakery recipes without increasing cost. It works by replacing up to 30% of the egg requirement while matching traditional baking performance measures such as specific volume.”