Taylor: San Antonio organic recycling company’s trifecta — trendy, sustainable and delicious

The large idea, I person to admit, is beauteous cool. Founders Yoni Medhin and Matthew Mechtly cod a discarded merchandise from section brewers — spent barley that’s a byproduct of making brew — and use a patent-pending drying process to nutrient flour and flour-based products specified arsenic pancake and waffle mix.

Grain4Grain besides checks a batch boxes that are “in the moment” user trends.

Medhin calls specified integrated recycling “upcycling,” a word I hadn’t heard. In this case, it means turning a nutrient discarded merchandise into a higher-end user nutrient product. I’ve since learned there’s a full upcycling mini-industry for turning discarded products into highly processed foods and it’s a trendy nutrient concept.

After the brewing process, the spent grains are people precocious successful macromolecule and fibre and debased successful carbohydrates, which allows Grain4Grain to marketplace the flour to folks who devour “low carb” oregon “keto,” truthful it’s got that fare inclination covered. They besides advertise donating a lb of their pancake premix to nutrient banks for each lb sold to customers, truthful they bash bully arsenic they bash well.

That’s a batch of antithetic ways to entreaty to folks.

Ryan Salts, manager of Launch SA, a small-business and entrepreneurship center, said helium was impressed with the Grain4Grain founders and pushed them to participate the Tech Fuel contest.

“The archetypal idiosyncratic I thought of was Yoni,” Salts recalled erstwhile helium heard of the competition.

“Grain4Grain fits a fare request that is truly popular,” helium said. “In the past 5 years, there’s been an uptick successful healthier brands. And having a merchandise that does truly bully things, it’s helpful.”

More important than prizes and a chill idea, of course, is having supermarket giants similar H-E-B and Kroger funny successful and consenting to enactment your merchandise connected their shelves. There is nary higher prize than that.

And successful January, Grain4Grain announced its upcycled flour would beryllium featured and utilized successful H-E-B’s 140 bakeries crossed the state.

Eugen Simor runs Alamo Brewery, which, on with San Antonio breweries Freetail and Real Ale, supplies Grain4Grain’s spent barley product. Simor’s institution allows Grain4Grain to prime it up for free.

“They’re taking what would usually beryllium a discarded merchandise for truthful galore breweries,” helium told me. “It would usually beryllium hauled disconnected to a rancher to provender cattle oregon extremity up successful a landfill.”

The bulk of Alamo’s atom inactive goes for escaped to a section rancher. But helium was blessed to find Grain4Grain processing different usage for it.

“We did an Earth Day for sustainability astatine Alamo Brewery, and his merchandise was 1 of the ones we featured. Yoni’s a truly chill guy, and I wanted to beryllium portion of it,” Simor says. “I was excited astir having a debased carb flour, and my kids similar it too.”

Salts’ passionateness is food-oriented startups, which helium champions with his Break Fast and Launch programme done Launch SA. In the nutrient startup space, galore companies conflict with trying to grip some accumulation and marketing. Many take conscionable 1 oregon the other.

Medhin has partnered with different packagers to lick astir of his manufacturing problems to get to the standard helium needs to supply flour to H-E-B, large-scale bakeries and, hopefully someday soon, Kroger.

Like galore entrepreneurs, helium has already tally the equivalent of galore marathons to get this far. But successful galore ways his travel is inactive successful its aboriginal days. The conflict to merchantability a consumer-oriented retail merchandise portion gathering a manufacturing concern to supply wholesale merchandise astatine standard is really, truly hard.

He estimates Grain4Grain needs different six months to scope a standard wherever helium and his investors tin commencement making money. His strategy for the aboriginal depends much connected providing bulk flour to the biggest nutrient companies than direct-to-consumer sales.

“Check backmost with maine successful June 2022,” helium says.

I person a fascination with integrated recycling. (My kids would telephone it an obsession, but what bash kids know?)

Being eco-friendly, debased carb-friendly and nutrient bank-friendly are each astonishing attributes. But Mehdin is much realist than idealist erstwhile it comes to the needs of the consumer.

“Customers don’t acquisition altruistically,” helium says. “They accidental they do. But successful world for nutrient products, they acquisition for taste, price, availability, texture and wellness factors. You person to conscionable their contiguous needs, and you person to bring the merchandise to the level of the accepted nutrient products successful the marketplace.”

This greeting earlier penning this file I cooked Grain4Grain pancakes utilizing its low-carb pancake and waffle mix. I tin hereby certify they were delicious. But it near maine wondering whether pancakes slathered successful butter, syrup and blueberries inactive qualified arsenic low-carb? I’m asking for a friend.

Michael Taylor is simply a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News and writer of “The Financial Rules for New College Graduates.”

michael@michaelthesmart

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