Fruit and vegetable scraps that currently are being thrown away as cutting waste can, through fermentation, be converted into high-end nutritional supplements with high concentrations of vitamin B12. This process involves a technology that is developed by Amsterdam Green Campus and its partners. Entrepreneur Ad van Vugt sees possibilities to reduce food waste. He tells his story in the NHD.
Professor Jeroen Hugenholtz of Wageningen University & Research (WUR), the 'inventor' of the fermentation procedure.
With his idea Ad van Vugt won himself a place in the Circular Innovation Top 20 of the Dutch province Noord-Holland. By now, the plan is in an advanced stage. Van Vugt has a company that supplies vegetable scraps, a company that can generate vitamin B12 and a producer of meat substitutes that aims to withdraw biological B12. "The business should be running within a couple of months," he expects. A problem or challenge is still how to execute the drying process on a large scale. "Yet, also with that we are going the right way, thanks to knowledge institutes. It's looking pretty good."
For the idea to generate vitamin B12 from cutting waste, Van Vugt collaborates with a vegetable packager Vezet from Warmenhuizen, according to the NHD article. Other possible large suppliers are vegetable cutter Hessing and the company Heemskerk. Together these companies are responsible for the bulk of the cutting waste of the province.
The fermentation process that converts fruit and vegetable scraps into high-end nutritional supplements has been developed in the context of the POP-3 project Zijstromen. Next to Amsterdam Green Campus, a diversity of partners were involved, including Wageningen University & Research (WUR), Oterap (the investment company of Van Vugt) and Greenport Noord-Holland Noord.
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