A newly-formed incubator at US food manufacturer Post Holdings has announced a “joint collaboration” with barley-based ingredients firm EverGrain to create “sustainable” food products.
Bright Future Foods, set up last year to, in Post’s words, “identify new technologies, business models and trends that have the potential to disrupt the food and beverage industry”, is teaming up with EverGrain to work on innovation in the area of in “climate-positive” snacks.
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In a statement, Bright Future Foods and EverGrain said any products developed would “be formulated using EverGrain’s circularly sourced barley protein and fibre and Bright Future Foods’ climate-positive oats”.
A spokesperson for Bright Future Foods declined to provide specific details on the type of products other than to say the partnership seeks to “reimagine agriculture and the food supply to create more climate-friendly food and beverage options”. The company also did not want to share information on the individual investments in the project.
EverGrain, based in St. Louis in Missouri, is backed by beer giant Anheuser-Busch InBev. It has invested almost US$100m in a site in St. Louis owned by Anheuser-Busch that will become the ingredients company’s headquarters.
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By GlobalDataGreg Belt, the CEO of EverGrain, said in a statement from Post Holdings, which is also based in St. Louis: "We are thrilled to partner with Bright Future Foods on reimagining the food-supply chain and developing products that are nutritious, great-tasting and sustainable. They are pioneering new ways to help address climate change through food and we are proud to partner with them on that journey."
Bright Future Foods CEO Mark Izzo added: "EverGrain's innovative processes make its barley-based ingredients one of the most sustainable plant protein and fibre sources in the world, while Bright Future Foods is pioneering climate-friendly snacking that starts with greenhouse-gas-removing grains and targeted sustainable agriculture practices.
"This collaboration allows us both to leverage our deep-rooted knowledge in agriculture and food processing to pioneer creative and sustainable new solutions for tackling the world's most pressing sustainability challenges."
Asked to explain the terminology around "greenhouse-gas-removing grains", the spokesperson responded: "We are pioneering the latest scientific practices and advancements to support the environment, allowing us to farm differently so that our oats can remove CO2 from the atmosphere by sequestering it in the soil. This helps make agriculture a solution to climate change, not a contributor."
Bright Future Foods, meanwhile, will launch its debut product in oat-based snacks on 17 May under its Airly brand – Airly Oat Cloud Crackers – which will be available online through the company's website and on Amazon, and will soon roll out in "several grocery store chains", the spokesperson confirmed.
