Resource-efficient and innovative management of waste from microbreweries based on edible mushrooms

The aim of the present project is to develop a resource-efficient on-site management concept aimed at waste from small-scale food and beverages industries. The specific focus is on microbreweries, which are increasing rapidly worldwide. In Swedish microbreweries, the majority of waste from the brewing process is discharged via the wastewater to municipal treatment plants. Still, this type of waste contains high amounts of nutrients and low load of pollutants and should be recycled to accomplish more sustainability and resource-efficiency. In this project, organic carbon and inorganic nutrients in waste from the brewery process will be used for production of edible fungal biomass through submerged fungal cultivation while simultaneous waste treatment occurs. Also, potential of the produced fungal biomass as a protein source in animal feed and as a component in biomaterial will be assessed.

The project is funded by Åforsk and based on a cooperation between SLU (Malin Hultberg) and Kristanstads University (Hristina Bodin).