In the culinary world, nose-to-tail eating has witnessed a resurgence of sorts in recent years. And with good reason: in addition to added nutritional sources, it significantly reduces food waste. Not to mention the supplemental revenue streams for sellers. One man's waste, another's treasure.
Waste to value systems are increasingly becoming central to the oilseeds processing industry as well. In a world in which sustainable innovations are the need of the hour, there is no other alternative.
As someone who leads product development and innovation at a leading EPCC company, I believe that there are three key imperatives to establish robust waste to value processes in the oils and fats industry.
First, to address the problem of limited resources. The primary raw materials used by oils and fats manufacturers come from agriculture. As changing climactic conditions alter the agricultural landscape, unsustainable cultivation practices and food insecurity are major concerns. If, after extracting oil from, say, sunflower seeds, the remaining meal is simply discarded, that is a huge waste of valuable resources which can be used in food and other industries. Second, converting waste to value can help oilseed processors develop more revenue streams. Think residual oilseed cake being sold to animal feed manufacturers, non-food-grade oils being used to make biodiesel, and different oils and fats being used to make oleochemicals for producers of cosmetics, soaps, and other chemicals. Third, waste to value systems minimise factories' waste management problems. If large amounts of "waste" components are being redirected to useful applications, factories will have much less solid and liquid waste to manage.
Waste to value innovations in the oils and fats industry
Demand for value-added products from the oils and fats industry is, and will continue to be, dynamic. This is due to evolving markets for biodiesel, bioethanol, renewable diesel, oleochemicals, and plant-based food products. Despite these diverse variables, industry analyses suggest that in the future, oilseed companies will focus less on volume and more on value growth. The prioritisation of environmental sustainability and human health will drive companies to innovate in the fields of food, feed, fuel, and beyond. Already, companies are investing in R&D into crops with potentially valuable characteristics and building capacity to manufacture downstream value-added products.
In the oilseeds industry, waste is generated at every step of the value chain. After seed harvesting and cleaning, husks, hulls, shells, stalks, and leaves are left behind. After mechanical and/or solvent extraction of oil, meal (or pomace, if extracted from a fruit) is left behind. After the crude oil is degummed, we get crude gum or lecithin. On further neutralisation or deacidification, oil refiners are left with soap stock. Further refining steps also produce by-products like deodoriser distillate and waxes. Almost all of the by-products generated in the process of manufacturing refined, bleached, and deodorised edible oil are valuable in different industries. Implementing waste to value innovations can help you ensure that you make the most of these by-products to benefit people, the planet, and your bottom line.
Sustainable innovations that you can implement in your waste to value systems
When customers come to us, they usually have a specific objective in mind - say, to set up a plant for a certain shea butter fraction, to help them refine sunflower seed oil at a certain tonnage per day, or to execute some other such oils and fats project. When customers come to us, we always deliver more than they ask for.
In the past few years at Kumar, we have invested heavily in sustainable innovations to advance the industry as a whole. All of our plants are optimised for energy efficiency, efficient resource use, and appropriate waste management. Our OM Innovation Centre ensures that we are ever-evolving, keeping up with the latest in waste to value processes. While we haven't yet dipped our fingers into all the waste to value possibilities available in the industry, here's a quick look at where Kumar and the oilseeds industry as a whole is headed in the coming years.
Extraneous material.
When oilseeds are being harvested and cleaned, extraneous materials like leaves, pods, stems, damaged kernels, stalks, coir, and other plant materials are also generated. Estimates suggest that, on average, approximately 0.7 to 0.8 tonnes of solid waste is generated for every tonne of raw materials. Such plant waste may be rich in cellulose, hemicellulose, and/or lignin. Some of these solid components can be used as boiler feed to generate steam. Alternatively, they can be composted or even used to produce charcoal via the process of pyrolysis. As you can see, even these seemingly worthless plant components are actually important parts of circular economy or waste to value systems.
Hull.
Oilseeds typically undergo certain preparatory steps to ensure that oil can be extracted from them efficiently. In the preparatory stage, hulls are separated from the rest of the seed. These hulls are quiet contributors to waste to value processes. Often, they are used as a fuel or heat source for the distillation process employed to separate the solvent from the extracted crude oil. For example, the hull of sunflower seeds is used as boiler feed in some processing industries. Some hulls are rich in anthocyanins, which means that they can be used to make edible colourants or food colours. This part of the seed is also used to make pectin, which is a common food thickener used to make foods like jelly. With its low methoxyl content, sunflower pectin is even useful in making low-sugar jellies.
Oilseed meal or cake.
The oilseed cake is the most widely used by-product of the oil extraction process. It may not always be suitable for human consumption, but it does have a high nutritional content. Oilseed meal is usually rich in protein, fibre, antioxidants, colourants, and other healthy constituents. If pre-treated appropriately, the anti-nutritional factors like tannins and trypsin inhibitors can be eliminated.
If efficient processes are developed to meet these objectives, oilseed cake can be an important protein source for human beings. Extracted proteins can be made into flours, concentrates, and isolates, depending on their protein content. Oilseed cake can also potentially yield antioxidants via solvent extraction. One thing to note is that even when the meal is not human food-grade, there is a chance that it can be beneficial to animals. In such cases, oilseed cake is an important input in the animal feed industry. Beyond food applications, protein extracts from oilseed meal have also been leveraged in the food packaging industry. For instance, soy protein can be used to make high-quality, biodegradable, smooth, flexible, and transparent packaging films. With further R&D, such protein isolates could also be used as adhesives.
Gum.
Gums (also referred to as phospholipids or lecithin) are derived from the degumming stage of oil refining. Soybean, rapeseed, sunflower, cottonseed, corn, and rice bran are all commercial sources of lecithin. After some processing, such gums have applications in animal feed, food supplements, pharmaceuticals, paint, cosmetics, and food industries in bakery and confectionary, as release agents or emulsifiers.
Soap stock.
On neutralisation or deacidification, soap stock is produced. Soap stock is used in the production of lipase, as a carbon source to produce carotenoid-producing yeast, to make green epoxides from fatty acids, and for the enzymatic production of natural epoxides in microchannel bioreactors.
Spent bleaching earth.
Spent bleaching earth, obtained after crude oil is bleached to remove pigments, can be used to produce poultry feed. This waste to value resource can also be used in the production of lubricating grease and biofertilizers.
The waste to value innovations I've covered here offer only a small glimpse into the vast potential for sustainable innovations in the oils and fats industry. I haven't even touched upon the massive markets for biodiesels and oleochemicals, both of which are major contributors to the waste to value ecosystem.
Ultimately, though the primary interest of most businesses in the industry is the oil or fat content of oilseeds, the best, most sustainable, and most profitable businesses always aim to use the remaining parts of the oilseed to their fullest potential. The best oils and fats businesses recognise that simply discarding non-oil components of their feedstock is a wasteful, uneconomical, and inefficient way of doing things. I am proud that Kumar Metal Industries is leading the way in making waste to value systems the default way of doing business, not only in India but the world over.
You might find these interesting:
Discover how to make the most of oilseeds
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Learn how a robust oilseeds market can secure India's food future
