🌾 Barley Beyond the Brew

EverGrain, an ingredient startup backed by beer giant Anheuser-Busch InBev, launched two barley-based products that bring new life to spent brewing grains.

As they say, one person's trash is another person's treasure.

With sustainability in mind, EverGrain developed EverPro™, which packs a protein isolate punch in drinks, snacks, and protein bars. They also launched EverVita™, a flour ingredient that bolsters pasta, baked goods, and guilt-free snacks with extra nutrition and gut health benefits.

Both products use post-brewing barley that otherwise would be wasted, composted, or used as livestock feed.

By the numbers:

→ 5 years of R&D led to the EverGrain products

→ 95% solubility positions barley as a nutritionally dense beverage additive

→ 9 million metric tons of barley are used annually by brewers

→ 260+ AB InBev breweries yield 1.4 million metric tons of spent barley annually

Sound bite: “AB InBev is proud to support such a remarkable, purpose-driven venture with a mission to create incredible ingredients to nourish the world through the transformative power of circularity,” noted Tony Milikin, chief sustainability and procurement officer, AB InBev.

What's ahead: EverGrain ingredients can already be found in products from Take Two, a barley milk company. More products will launch with commercial partners later this quarter.

→ France doubles down on duck culling. In order to avoid a repeat '16-'17 bird flu crisis, 400K ducks have been culled in the European country to halt the H5N8 strain.

→ CHS lacking energy. Q1 results showed positive Ag segment growth but pandemic-related problems dinged the Energy segment, dragging net income down 60% from Q1 2020.

→ China hog futures stumble on debut. The September contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange fell 12.6% on its premiere as analysts note a high listing price and expected pickup in China supplies.

→ Stabenow to step (back) up. With Democrats clinching both Georgia Senate runoff elections last week, Michigan’s Debbie Stabenow is expected to return to her post as Senate Ag Committee Chair, a role she held from 2011-2015.

→ Smithfield eyes vaccine ramp up. The global pork producer expects to be administering COVID-19 vaccines to its workforce in the next 60 days.

→ CropIn harvests $20M. The farm data and agronomy management platform will use its Series C funding to build out its machine learning and predictive analytics capabilities while growing its global footprint.

→ Dairy numbers swing down. USDA reports showed November cheese output fell 2.7% from October, leading StoneX Group to note “the U.S. market remains stuck between bearish commercial fundamentals and bullish government purchases.”

Apples are ready for their year in the limelight.

As if healthy-eating resolutions weren’t going to boost early demand for the original superfood, the United Nations gave it another lift by announcing 2021 as the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables.

This comes as apples ended 2020 on a high note.

Refresher: After the initial shock of COVID-19 subsided, grocers doubled down on logistics to maintain their fresh produce offerings. By the end of the year, expected lower supplies for the ‘20-’21 crop had apple prices rising.

In Washington, where 69.5% of U.S. apple production occurs, weather and smaller-bearing varieties sunk volumes 8-10%.

Bottom line: 2021 looks to be another banner year for apples. Even as shoppers frequent grocery retailers less often, trends point to higher volume apple purchases as folks stockpile the shelf life-strong fruit.

The e-commerce meat biz is busy.

Just last week, Canadian meat subscription service truLOCAL, the country’s 14th fastest growing startup, was acquired. And in 2020, U.S.-based peers like ButcherBox and Omaha Steaks saw year-over-year growth ranging from 138% to 300%. Even Beyond Meat, the alt-meat powerhouse, set up its direct-to-consumer shop during the pandemic.

And it’s only the beginning.

While direct-to-consumer companies often snag the headlines, most animal protein sales are still made at the grocery store. But even those transactions are trending online. Before COVID-19, 19% of Americans had purchased groceries online. That number more than doubled to 40% by May.

And beef wants its share of the action.

Sign of the times: The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association signed a partnership with digital shopper marketing platform Chicory to boost beef’s e-profile.

Chicory’s Digital Shopping Aisle serves up recipes and ads to shoppers on the web. From there, consumers are driven to the ‘digital meat case’, where they can plop steak, roast, or ground beef into their digital basket for checkout. A quick pickup at the nearest Kroger, Walmart, or Albertsons is all that's left to do.

Where this goes: The global pandemic pressured the meat value chain in numerous ways. But by putting the pedal to the metal on e-commerce tools and subscription service systems, the industry is setting itself up for long-term success. Expect to see more in this space sooner rather than later.