Insects are an important base level of the food chain. Without flying insects we would not have pollination of 80% of our wild plants or the food source for 60% of the world’s birds. Insect habitats have declined, contributing to this loss of insects. Evolito aims to work with companies who implement measures to restore habitats for this important community, monitoring the effectiveness of the measures taken.

The company Evolito is building real-time insect biodiversity monitoring systems. The technology platform combines patent-protected sensor technology with artificial intelligence to calculate the number of insect families present, the number and activity of the insects, and the overall insect biomass present in the area.

Monitoring insect populations systematically, efficiently and accurately is key

Smart insect classification

Science is refining biodiversity targets, emphasizing the importance of companies’ compliance with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Monitoring biodiversity is crucial for conserving insects and upholding planetary health, aligning with SDG objectives. Evolito’s cloud-based data upload, occurring every 30 minutes, enables easy access to real-time information on insect activity supporting ESG compliance efforts.

Evolito develops its systems with collaboration in many sectors, including solar parks, restoration agriculture, and companies with biodiversity-minded construction projects. Their data ensures that the efforts taken to conserve or increase biodiversity are effective.

JEROS A/S is making a large difference for food manufacturers all over the world with their product range of various food production washers and tray cleaners. With their cleaning solutions, food manufacturers can achieve unparalleled levels of hygiene, while reducing the water usage, thus playing a central role in achieving a more sustainable production.

It can be difficult for food manufacturers to reduce their water consumption without compromising the high hygiene and food safety standards required by authorities and consumers. When operators wash processing equipment by hand, it is also difficult to ensure standards are met.

The Danish company JEROS is making a difference for food manufacturers all over the world. Based on more than 55 years of experience, their cleaning solutions ensure unparalleled levels of hygiene with less water usage – enabling manufacturers to improve the sustainability of their production.

The system cuts cleaning time to just six minutes and water consumption to 16 litres

One of their solutions, the JEROS ACE, is the most flexible and efficient cleaning system for multi-head weigher components and other scale parts in food production.

Using a traditional manual process, it typically takes operators an hour to clean 32 multi-head weigher components and 730 litres of water. The JEROS ACE system cuts cleaning time to just six minutes and water consumption to 16 litres.

A rinse temperature of 85°C also ensures all components are thoroughly disinfected and hygienic – ready for the next product batch. This is a huge improvement that can play a large role for companies, as time spent cleaning is often time spent producing nothing. Therefore, efficient cleaning is a must.

Trusted around the world

With a JEROS system, food producers can look forward to more environmentally friendly production, uniform food safety and lower operating costs. Large food conglomerates like Pepsico and Nestlé and the Danish dairy giant Arla Foods have all implemented JEROS solutions in their production.

Milk holds second place on the global list of most commonly adulterated foods. The highest risk is in countries with an emerging dairy sector, where control systems may be less well established. But even in well-developed markets, experienced milk hauliers and processors must stay alert to contaminants from tanks, equipment and criminal activity.

To maintain trust in dairy production, the industry must ensure consistent safety and quality, optimise raw material use and boost productivity. This makes reliable, high-frequency testing essential across the entire value chain.

Automated milk testing with results in less than a minute

In the dairy industry, Danish technology company FOSS provides high-tech testing solutions that serve as a standard quality assurance tool. By screening for bacteria, contaminants and overall milk quality, dairies can ensure high standards of food safety and fair payment for farmers.

Using FOSS technology, milk testing centres can program their instruments to screen raw milk samples for known sources of adulterant while determining the milk’s composition of protein, fat, lactose and total solids. Results are delivered in less than a minute.

By comparing samples with the composition of normal milk, the technology can identify individual adulterants that pose a threat to consumer health in less than a minute

FOSS has pioneered the use of Fourier Transform Infrared Analysis to meet this specific need. By comparing samples with the composition of normal milk, the technology can identify individual adulterants that pose a threat to consumer health in less than a minute.

Smarter milk testing supports safer, more transparent production

Innovative solutions from Danish analytical technology supplier FOSS empower the global food industry to safeguard food safety and quality. Automated screening of milk samples enhances transparency and efficiency, helping dairies optimise livestock yield and productivity.

For decades, FOSS has worked with the dairy sector to drive smarter, more sustainable food production – ensuring high food safety standards and improving trust across the value chain.

Innovative technology from Cimbria Unigrain is tackling two major challenges for the food industry – the need to improve food safety and reduce food loss to a minimum.

As a world leader in grain handling and seed processing technology, Cimbria Unigrain has specialised in developing advanced solutions that sort and grade seeds, protect crops from post-harvest spoilage and, through that, effectively reduces waste.

Sea Chromex is one example. A full-colour vision system combined with near-infrared technology, it represents the most advanced vision-based seed and grain sorter on the market – capable of recognising and separating the tiniest defects in colour, shape and size, which are invisible to the human eye.

advanced solutions that sort and grade seeds, protect crops from post-harvest spoilage and, through that, effectively reduces waste

Cimbria Unigrain has incorporated InGaAs technology in Sea Chromex to enable precise removal of hidden flaws, such as grain contaminated with mycotoxins or sclerotium, unshelled grain or fragments of nutshells.

In this way, the quality of grain and seeds reaches a new level of excellence. Grain meets the highest standards for food and feed safety, and damaged seeds with low germination potential are removed. The reduction of loss also cuts costs – a major benefit for the agriculture sector and the food supply chain as a whole.

The Danish-based brewery group, Carlsberg, has set ambitious climate goals to which eliminating water waste will be central. In May 2021, its first total water recycling plant opened, leading a world-wide transformation. At the Fredericia brewery in Denmark, the brewery will recycle 90% of all process water and halve previous water use on site while cutting energy consumption by 10%.

Whether producing soft drink or beer, water stays as a main ingredient at breweries. Today, droughts and water shortages are leading to rationed use of water around the world and therefore, water-efficient technologies are a prerequisite for operating new markets for companies that traditionally have a large water consumption, such as breweries.

Partnering to minimise water waste

Carlsberg is part of the Danish public-private partnership for resource and water efficient industrial food production (DRIP) to address the problem of water waste in the food industry. Through the DRIP partnership, Carlsberg has tapped into the combined knowledge of academic institutions and technology companies which has helped the brewery in Denmark to find the right partners to develop solutions that can further reduce water waste.

Water consumption for beer production will be reduced from 2.9 to 1.4 hl of water/hl of beer. For soft drinks, the reduction is 1.5 to 1.2 hl of water/hl of soft drink

At the Fredericia brewery, new technologies have always been used to ensure a high degree of water efficiency. When the brewery first opened in 1979, the water-to-beer ratio was 4:1 at a time when the global norm was above 6:1. In 2019, the Fredericia brewery was selected as a test site for Carlsberg’s first total water recycling plant.

Since the recycling plant opened, the process wastewater from cleaning of equipment and packaging material has been directed to the wastewater treatment and water recycling (Water Recovery) plant. The water is treated to remove nutrients and organic material, passed through a sterile filtration membrane to remove bacteria and then rinsed through a second tighter membrane that removes salt. In other words: The solution makes it the first brewery in the world to practically eliminate all water waste.

Flagship for sustainability programme

With the new wastewater treatment and recycling plant, Carlsberg aims to reduce the average water consumption in beer production to 1.4 hectolitres (hl) of water per hl. of beer and in soft drinks production to 1.2 hl. of water per hl. of soft drinks. The project is a flagship for Carlberg’s Together Towards ZERO sustainability programme. It consists of four ambitions: ZERO carbon footprint, ZERO water waste, ZERO irresponsible drinking and a ZERO accidents culture. Each of these is underpinned by individual measurable targets to be achieved by 2022 or 2030.

Over the past 10 years, Carlsberg has been closely involved in developing and testing the HYDRACT process valve, and since 2016 Carlsberg has implemented the HYDRACT valve at the company’s brewery in Fredericia, Denmark, reducing electrical power consumption for valve actuation with more than 90%.

There is a growing demand and an environmental need to push global development in a greener direction, which creates momentum to accelerate the green transition across sectors. Just in Denmark, the food industry accounts for 30% of the industry’s total energy use. In recent years, Danish food companies have been keen on working with the optimisation of production processes to support the green transformation of the food industry.

The smallest things make a huge difference

A unique valve technology from Danish company HYDRACT has since 2016 been implemented at Carlsberg’s brewery in Fredericia, making the beer production both cheaper and greener. The invention is a water-hydraulic valve that opens and closes much more accurate than all other valves. Because water is incompressible, the hydraulic valves provide an unprecedented level of precision and control compared to pneumatic valves.

The valve technology reduces the electrical power consumption by more than 90%

The brewery in Fredericia has more than 7,000 valves that today are controlled by air. The new valves use water to send various liquids through the thousands of pipes instead and are saving the brewery a significant amount of electrical power in beer production. The precision and repeatability achieved with water hydraulics as an alternative to compressed air enable an entirely new approach to effective and sustainable beer production.

Brewing a game-changer at Carlsberg, Fredericia

With the valves from HYDRACT, Carlsberg can reduce their energy consumption for valves by more than 90% compared to today- equivalent to approximately 5-10% of the brewery’s total electrical power consumption. Carlsberg has committed themselves to reduce energy in their own project “Towards ZERO” and here the HYDRACT valves will be a great help. Not only by reducing energy, but also by minimising production waste and water consumption together with reducing the chemical use and cleaning costs with up to 30%.

High administration costs are primary expenses for food producing companies due to strict regulations and demands of documentation from both authorities and potential business partners. A cloud-based ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software developed by Danish company tracezilla enables managers to oversee their companies’ inventories.

Companies in the food and agricultural sector must be able to comply with various rules for traceability and documentation to the authorities. Furthermore, it is important for companies to have a proper overview of their inventory so that they do not risk their raw materials falling in quality or becoming poor.

The software simplifies management of professional and contemporary food businesses

These high demands drive up administration costs which can make it hard to allocate funds for business development and upscaling of production. Especially when working with certified food products such as organic and fair-trade commodities.

Decrease allocation of resources for administration and documentation

The Danish company, tracezilla, has developed a cloud-based ERP software specifically for food producing companies. The software simplifies management of professional and contemporary food businesses and accounts for the complexity of trading and producing foods in all types of markets.

tracezilla eases the administration aspect of businesses by keeping track of all certifications, ensuring product traceability, utilising the forecasting module to base company purchases off sales, cost price and inventory value calculations, automatically integrating all relevant documents into the system and much more.

New business opportunities can be explored

The Danish growing company Nordisk Tang (Nordic Seaweed) has replaced excel sheets and documents and made tracezilla the foundation of their production data collection, which has made it a lot easier to locate waste of resources and mistakes in their production line.

Consequentially, the resources that has been freed up has allowed Nordisk Tang to explore new valuable cooperation agreements with business partners, who have high demands when it comes to documentation and traceability throughout the supply chain.

As a result, Nordisk Tang has experienced a 50% reduction in the time spent overseeing their documentation for organic production.

 

A Danish collaborative project has developed a sustainable and climate-friendly protein produced on local biorefining plants to lessen the amount of imported soy protein.

Soybean meal is the most widely used protein feed for animals such as poultry and pigs consisting of 20-30% of the total feed volume. The production and transportation of soybeans have major implications on the climate and environment as soy production – especially in Latin America – is the cause of deforestation to create space for soybean production. The import of soy feed to Denmark is calculated to cause 58% of the total climate impact of Danish agriculture.

Furthermore, the global market is aiming at becoming less dependent on imported proteins and is searching for solutions, which will not only be more environmentally friendly but also provide producers the opportunity to produce the necessary proteins locally and organically.

The biorefining plant extracts the organic protein, which can then be exploited for feed for animals such as poultry and pigs

Locally produced organic protein for animal feed

TailorGrass is a Danish collaboration project between SEGES, R&D Engineering and Automation, Ausumgaard and Vestjyllands Andel. The project has developed a commercial extraction method of protein made from organic grass, clover and alfalfa. The protein has a high biological value as well as an amino acid composition, which resembles that of soy protein.

The biorefining plant extracts the organic protein, which can then be exploited for feed for animals such as poultry and pigs. The protein can in the future even be used in the production of food for people. The first green biorefinery was established in the summer of 2020. The first organic feed developed on green protein hit the market in 2021.

Decreases negative environmental impact without affecting the meat

Experiments have shown that the growth rate of poultry and pigs are similar on feed made from local green protein as by eating soy protein feed without affecting the taste of the meat. The production of green protein still emits greenhouse gasses, but only 33% of the average emission from soy feed production.

The Danish companies behind TailorGrass are ready to assist with knowledge and guidance to interested domestic and international parties that want to produce the green protein on their own plants.

The Danish-based company with Colombian founders, Kaffe Bueno, aims at upcycling spent coffee grounds for new sustainable products and solutions with both environmental and nutritional benefits.

More than 10 million tonnes of coffee are consumed on a yearly basis around the world, according to the International Coffee Organization. Nearly all of it ends up as spent coffee grounds, which are being handled and disposed as household waste. This significantly impacts the environment as the decomposition process of the wasted coffee grounds releases greenhouse gases.

1 tonne of wasted and decomposed coffee grounds produces 340 m³ of methane – a gas 30 times more harmful to the environment than CO² – that goes directly into the earth’s atmosphere.

Exploiting what would otherwise be waste

Kaffe Bueno has come up with new ways of exploiting the otherwise wasted coffee grounds for the development of new sustainable consumer products and ingredients for the food and cosmetic industries. The upcycling process of Kaffe Bueno’s products ensures sustainable production because of the utilisation of coffee grounds, which would otherwise have been discarded at landfills as an ordinary waste product.

Kaffe Bueno operates the world’s first coffee biorefinery, enabling them to upcycle 1,000 tonnes of spent coffee grounds annually

Innovative solutions from a residual product

The coffee bean contains several components with nutritional benefits that creates value for the end product. One of Kaffe Bueno’s products, “Kaffibre”, is an upcycled gluten-free flour, which is high in fibre, rich in proteins, low in fat content and includes the potassium-mineral. The flour is derived from spent coffee grounds collected from industrial partners. Kafflour can be used as a substitute or as an addition to other types of standard flours when baking and cooking. This can increase a recipe’s nutritional value, replace chemical-based ingredients and give food manufacturers cost benefits.

Another product developed by Kaffe Bueno is KAFFOIL, which produces 2–3.4 times fewer emissions than argan oil and up to 9.4 times fewer CO₂ emissions per kilogram compared to palm oil.

In search for alternative sources of protein for organic pig feed an innovative collaboration between local fishery and the worlds’ first starfish plant has led to a triple win solution.   

Organic pig production is a successful part of Danish high-quality food for both local markets and exports. Part of the organic production DNA has always been an active search for better solutions to improve quality while lowering the environmental foot prints.

Collaborative innovation is key

An important step in this direction is to find feed alternatives that minimises the import of protein from abroad. Looking under water has proven fruitful in more than one case and the latest success builds on a collaboration between local fishermen who are challenged by starfish in the waters of Limfjord and a new plant that specialises in the extraction of proteins from seawater sources.

With the plant ready to buy the starfish, the fishermen can now see them as a source of income rather than an underwater competitor in the mussel fishery

The plant run by the company Danish Marine Protein is owned by Vestjyllands Andel (Cooperative of Limited Liability) and build as part of the multi sector collaboration GreenLab A/S buys the starfish from mussel catches in the fjord, dries them and grinds the solids to powder. This powder is then ready to add to the daily feed of organic pigs. The plant thus acts as the crucial link in a new supply chain that brings in solutions in both ends of the chain.

Turning a nuisance into a source of income

Starfish used to be a nuisance to the local mussel fishermen. The starfish have a large appetite for mussels and make a serious hindrance for upscaling the catch and sales of quality mussels from the fjord. Further, by preventing the optimal thriving of the mussels, an important source for cleansing and keeping the marine environment in perfect shape is lost.

With the plant ready to buy the starfish, the fishermen can now see them as a source of income rather than an underwater competitor in the mussel fishery – with the added benefit of improving the conditions of the marine environment.

At the other end of the chain, the organic pig farmers can cut down the soy imports and enjoy using a local protein source.