Circular superfoods

Imagine a substance that could transform emissions into an effective, scalable means to help nourish our planet - a solution that doesn’t just do less harm, but actively addresses critical issues around climate - reducing greenhouse gases, freeing up arable land to restore biodiversity, eliminating the need for intensive use of precious resources like fresh water. This substance exists and is called microalgae, a tiny, but powerful organism that actually helped give rise to life on earth billions of years ago by converting CO2 into oxygen and nutrient dense, protein-rich food.

The objective of the Circular Superfoods project is to create a CARBON NEGATIVE (or CLIMATE POSITIVE) superfood rich in antioxidants, protein, vitamins and minerals using microalgae grown with food waste and carbon emissions as primary input: Brewer’s Spent Grain (BSG) and Carbon-dioxide (CO2) produced during fermentation processes in breweries.

This circular bio-systemic and bioproduct design emphasises the importance on the practicalities towards the transition to a Circular Bioeconomy (CBE), where the focus lies on the sustainable, resource-efficient valorization of biomass in integrated, multi-output production chains (e.g., biorefineries) from organic residues and waste. Optimizing this biomass value over time via cascading into different sectors while retaining the resource quality using bio-based value and waste hierarchy pyramid, ensures sustainable food system transition on various industrial processes (Stegmann et al., 2020).