First steering board meeting
On December 19, 2017 the steering board of the LIFE YEAST project came together in Valladolid at the facilities of BDi Biotechnology. During this meeting the technical progress on the project during the last 5 months was presented to the board. The aim of this meeting is mainly to ensure that the planned trials have been started in time, as well as make sure that the budget is respected and possible problems are discovered in time. Overall, most of the activity has started in time and were being executed according to planning. Actions which were delayed were discussed and a plan of action was prepared to tackle the problems.
Factory acceptance test of the microbrewery
On December 20, 2017 the LIFE YEAST project team accomplished a successful factory acceptance test for the microbrewery which is going to be installed at BDi Biotechnology facilities. The microbrewery is required to produce the amounts of brewers’ spent yeast necessary for the production of the different yeast extracts for the different demonstrations.
Participation at the first stakeholders’ meeting of LIFE BREWERY
On March 14, 2018 the LIFE YEAST project team participated in the webinar of the first LIFE BREWERY stakeholders’ meeting which was held at the headquarters of The Brewers of Europe in Brussels and organized by Azty Tecnalia. The LIFE BREWERY project which focusses on “New strategies for improving the sustainability of breweries: Full waste recovery for aquaculture feed” shares some mutual interests with the LIFE YEAST project. The meeting itself aimed to gather the value chain agents of both the brewery and aquaculture sector to contextualize the objectives of the project and to identify all the parameters that will guarantee that the suggested valorization solution is techno-economically and environmentally feasible and suitable to transfer to the market. During the webinar the secondary product sources and valorization alternatives were analyzed as a way of increasing the value and competiveness of the brewing sector.
First LIFE YEAST monitoring meeting
On May 3, 2018 the first monitoring visit of the LIFE YEAST project took place at the BDi Biotechnology facilities in Valladolid. The meeting was attended by Estibaliz Gabilondo from the NEEMO external monitoring team representing the European Commission, the different project partners (VLP Bio, AB InBev) and BDi Biotechnology as the coordinator of the project. The aim of this first meeting was to assess the technical project progress and the upcoming actions, as well as the financial status of the project and the project management in general.
Development of first prototypes incorporating yeast extract
On May 15, 2018 the LIFE YEAST team evaluated the first prototypes developed by an external partner in Spain, Innofood I+D+I. Yeast extracts can have lots of different applications and the possibilities to use it in other industries are hence very broad. These possible applications go from feed to food industry, from supporting fermentation in pharma to brewery industry etc. The first industry on which was focused was the food industry. For this, Innofood I+D+I developed a range of food products, both liquid products as well as solid food, in which different concentrations of the yeast extracts produced in the pilot at BDi Biotechnology facilities, were incorporated. The LIFE YEAST team was present to evaluate the first prototypes and subject them to a preliminary tasting.
Production of Yeast Extract: Successful scale-up to demonstration scale
After successful optimization of the extraction process to convert BSY into CYE, YCW and PAY at small scale, in January 2018 BDi Biotechnology started with the scale-up of this technology to semi-industrial scale (100 L pilot). During a 6 months scale-up period, several production batches were completed, in order to obtain YE in the most optimal conditions taking into account both the quality as well as the quantity of the final product.
In June 2018, the BSY valorization technology for the production of the different interesting constituents (YE, YCW and PAY) derived from the BSY was validated. The results from the demonstration allowed to verify both the technical and economic feasibility of the technology as well as the excellent environmental and energy performance.
Installation of a microbrewery
In May 2018, the final phase of the installation of the microbrewery plant took place at BDi Biotechnology facilities and the Site Acceptance Test (SAT) was successfully completed on June 4th. With a microbrewery at the facilities of BDi Biotechnology, it is possible to produce BSY on site allowing a greener production by reducing CO2 emissions caused by the transport of BSY from the closest AB InBev brewery (600 km). The microbrewery with a capacity of 1000 L is now fully operational.
