Business Innovation Category: 2021 Winner Froth Technologies – Live Liquid Yeast
Froth Technologies was the 2021 winner of the Business Innovation Award for their Live Liquid Yeast.
Co-founders of Froth Technologies, Simon and Ryan, identified an opportunity to grow liquid yeast commercially for the brewing industry – a first for a New Zealand company. All the other essential ingredients to make beer were readily available, unlike yeast, which had to be imported.
Froth Technologies' Live Liquid Yeast contains trillions of living yeast cells that have been grown in a custom designed facility in Wellington via a unique propagation process. The yeast is grown up to 'pitchable' volumes, meaning that the brewers of Aotearoa can buy enough liquid yeast to add directly to full batches of wort.
Entry (extracts):
1. Product Name
Froth Technologies’ Live Liquid Yeast
2. Product Description
‘Pitchable’ volumes of live liquid yeast containing trillions of living yeast cells.
Innovation
3. Where did the idea for this product come from?
The 'eureka' moment for the product came when co-founders Simon and Ryan were looking to start a craft brewery, after years working in the industry, making recipes and brewing beer. The pair wanted to do things sustainably, so using local ingredients was a high priority. The boys found that while three of the four key ingredients for beer (water, malt, and hops) had been produced in New Zealand for decades, all the yeast for brewing was still being imported, often from the U.S.A or Europe. This realisation was the seed that grew into the idea for the product.
Keen to take on a challenge, Simon and Ryan pivoted away from the brewery idea and journeyed further down the rabbit hole of commercial yeast production. After 6 months of market research and many hours spent researching yeast, Froth Technologies was founded in October 2018.
4. How did you determine the product originality?
The product itself - that is, liquid yeast for brewing - is not in itself original; it is something that has been used in brewing around the world for centuries. Liquid yeast is yeast's natural form, as opposed to dried or compressed yeast, which require additional processing. What is original is the process behind the product, and the fact that it is the only instance of liquid brewers yeast being grown commercially in Aotearoa. That no one was domestically producing liquid yeast for brewers was easy to validate; experience working in the brewing industry and targeted market research were the primary mechanisms behind this validation.
The process has been designed by the business' co-founders, drawing upon many hours of research and development, small scale pilot trials, and in product testing.
5. Did you consider any new technology to your company in the development of this product?
It would be slightly amiss for a business with 'Technologies' in the name to shy away from new technology. One piece of technology that we use in our process is a live fermentation tracking system called 'BrewMonitor.' This system measures fermentation performance across 7 key parameters in real time, taking readings every 10 minutes and communicating data to a live dashboard, effectively allowing us to have 'eyes' inside of our fermenters. It also alerts us to when a fermentation falls outside of our set parameters for that specific strain of yeast, allowing us to adjust fermentations as required to hit production targets and ensure consistency. Froth Technologies is the first company in New Zealand to use this specific technology.
We also utilise a system called Oculyze which is an electronic microscope paired with an automated cell counting software, allowing us to achieve higher levels of accuracy and remove bias when it comes to performing cell counts and viability checks on our yeast - a crucial aspect in yeast cultivation. Unlike traditional laboratory automated cell counters that can cost anywhere from $25k upwards, the Oculyze system is part of a new wave of technology utilising advances in things like 3D printing to democratise access to technologies that were previously inaccessible to many due to financial restrictions.
6. What were some of the challenges in developing your product and how did you overcome them?
The primary challenge in growing pure, healthy, liquid yeast cultures, for us, arose from the fact that neither of the co-founders had any direct experience or training in microbiology. Having both come from a brewing background, the co-founders understood the key principles behind growing yeast, but translating this into a commercial environment, with potentially catastrophic outcomes for our clients if not done properly (e.g contamination or failed batches of beer), meant a steep learning curve. Part of our success in overcoming these challenges was acknowledging what we didn't know, seeking advice and working to inform assumptions before acting.
We overcame this significant challenge through determination, research, and trial and error. Scouring YouTube for tours of yeast production facilities overseas helped us verify that the path we were on in terms of our plant, equipment, and process was not miles off. Reading academic journals and publications about yeast and generally undertaking what research we could, as well as relying on prior practical brewery experience, helped us to further hone our process development. Reaching out to a yeast lab based in Canada proved fruitful, as we were able to talk with one of their founders to help us better understand the challenges we should expect when embarking on this journey.
The biggest learnings however came from applying this research into a practical environment when we rented a small pilot space to test our capacity to produce yeast. Multiple failed batches followed by reviewing data and deductive reasoning allowed us to tweak and tune the process in the early stages, and this attitude and approach to constant review and adjustment (aided by new technologies and analytics) has continued through to our day to day production of full scale batches of yeast.
Developing a QC protocol to ensure that the yeast we are producing was pure, and did not harbour any unwanted microbes was also a challenge. Our entire propagation process has been designed with sterile inputs (HEPA filtered air, UVC sterilised water, and growth medium prepared in a bespoke 500L pressure kettle) to mitigate risk, and this is coupled with a rigid QC process centred around selective media plating across key stages of the propagation to ensure any unwanted infections are identified before release.
7. In your food technologist’s words, what was the proudest moment in the product’s journey?
The proudest moment in the product's journey comes once it leaves our facility and is in the hands of the brewers. Specifically, it is when our yeast makes a difference to the processes and final product (beer) that brewers are producing that we are most proud. Hearing from our clients that our yeast has solved problems for them in terms of fermentation performance is a huge measure of success for us, and something that we had always been confident in; so it is extremely rewarding to hear feedback that confirms this. Some of the feedback we have heard talks about reduced production times, ease of using the product (compared to in-house brewery yeast propagation), good multi-batch re-use, and above all, excellent beer!
Sustainability
8. Describe how environmental outcomes have been maximized across the entire life cycle of the product and your company processed for achieving these outcomes?
Sustainability has been a top priority for Froth Technologies since the beginning, and localising the manufacture of liquid yeast in itself is having an impact. With all yeast for brewing in Aotearoa otherwise coming in from offshore (via air freight for liquid yeast), having a local producer immediately works to reduce the carbon footprint of breweries. Liquid yeast has also been demonstrated to produce 40% less CO2 emissions from cradle to gate than dried yeast equivalents (figures taken from COFALEC 'Carbon Footprint of Yeast in the European Union' report).
Coupled with the lower-carbon nature of our locally produced liquid yeast product, other key environmental considerations have been made in all aspects of the product's production. Froth has identified Ingredients, Energy, and Packaging as the 3 key considerations for the carbon footprint of our product.
Ingredients:
The malt-extract used as the primary food source to grow the yeast is sourced locally from Lion Breweries in Dunedin, who have strong sustainability goals themselves. This, along with water, is the primary ingredient used in the propagation process, and so sourcing this locally means we are able to keep carbon miles down and we have faith in Lion's manufacturing and procurement practices after due diligence into their sustainability goals.
Energy:
The plant used to produce the product is all electric. Opting for an electronically fired kettle and hot liquor tank, as opposed to cheaper gas fired alternatives, was an intentional decision that comes with significant cost implications, but allows us to use a more sustainable energy source to produce our product.
Packaging:
All aspects of our packaging have also been designed to be as sustainable as possible. For our first run of 10L plastic jerry cans we were able to source a 'green' HDPE material, which is carbon negative along its life cycle, and have a small run manufactured. Unfortunately, we have been unable to continue with this product in the immediate term due to restrictive minimum order quantities requiring a 3 year supply to be purchased in one lot. We do, however, intend to return to this as soon as it is feasible for us to do so. The insulation we use for cold-shipping our product, '(TempGuard' by Sealed Air) is a 100% recyclable shredded paper box liner. We also use paper tape for sealing and a logo stamp for marking our boxes in place of plastic tape and stickers.
Further to this, we request our clients to return packaging to us where possible so that we can re-use, or ensure it is properly recycled. We have had a Carbon Reduction Strategy in place since 2019 and have a goal to achieve CarbonZero certification by the end of our first year of trading.
Simon Cooke, one of the two co-founders is our impact champion and is constantly seeking new ways to ensure the impact our product has on the environment is a positive one.
9. Provide a specific example of environmental sustainability initiatives related to the product you have entered.
Packaging - all aspects of our packaging have been procured with sustainability in mind. With yeast being a temperature sensitive, perishable, living organism, packaging solutions must be balanced to ensure suitability for the product (sterility, temperature control, etc.), while keeping sustainability goals in mind.
While being unable to avoid plastics as the form of packaging for our product, we have endeavoured to source more sustainable plastics. We were able to achieve this with our first run of 10L plastic jerry cans, having 100 bottles made from a 'green' HDPE material, which is carbon negative along its life cycle. Unfortunately, we have been unable to continue with this product in the immediate term due to manufacturer's restrictive minimum order quantities that require a 3 year supply to be purchased in one lot. We do, however, intend to return to this as soon as it is feasible for us to do so.
The insulation we use for cold-shipping our product, '(TempGuard' by Sealed Air) is a 100% recyclable shredded paper box liner. This required trialling against a foil lined bubble wrap we were previously using, as our yeast needs to stay below 5C throughout delivery. We were pleased to be able to switch to this more sustainable alternative.
We also use paper tape for sealing and a logo stamp for marking our boxes in place of plastic tape and stickers.
10. Describe how your company consciously addresses social sustainability across the entire life cycle of its products and your company process for achieving these outcomes.
As a new business that started just after lockdown was lifted, there is a lot we plan to do, but have not been able to achieve quite yet. We want our business to leave a positive impact on people and the planet, and will be doing more in this area as our business becomes more established.
Kaitiakitanga is one of our core values as a business. We acknowledge that it is from our natural world that yeast has become available to humans, and are intrigued by the way yeast and the environment interact. As part of our crowdfunding campaign we offered pledgers the opportunity to support us by funding the planting of a native tree - something we completed last year with Conservation Volunteers Wellington, sponsoring 70 native trees and helping to plant more than 700 in total on that day. Tree planting days like this are something we plan to do more of in the future.
We have a strong focus on cultivating a positive, fun, inclusive work culture, and have implemented processes and practices to help facilitate this. A big starting point for this is paying our staff a living wage. We want our staff to feel valued within the company, and not just like a means to an end. Paying our staff a living wage is challenging as a small, young business, but it is important to us that we ensure our staff are able to live a good, comfortable life.
We have an employee handbook to communicate to employees the values of the company, our workplace culture, and to help them feel welcome and empowered to do their job. We also have regular team meetings, where we 'check in' on each other to provide an opportunity to discuss things going on outside of the workplace. We have an exit interview process and employment reviews where we provide and ask for feedback from our staff, so we can address any changes, challenges, or issues that might have come to the fore. We celebrate our wins as a team by attending industry events, putting on lunch shouts for our brewery clients, and participating in various aspects of the beer industry.
While not officiated through any formal document, we have strong focus on sustainable procurement for our ingredients and packaging. Sustainability and social justice are a huge focus for us, and so making sure that we are doing business with companies whose values align with ours is paramount. Where possible we source ingredients and packaging locally and from companies we know to be doing good things.
11. Provide a specific example of social sustainability initiatives related to the product you have entered.
Living wage employer from day one / first staff member. Planting 700 trees with Conservation Volunteers Wellington June 2020.
Excellence
12. Briefly outline your product process.
The product development process started over 2 years ago, by talking to the brewers who would hopefully become our clients.
We wanted to understand brewers pain points, and not rely on our own interpretations of what we thought brewers wanted from a domestic yeast supplier. Market research, then, was the first step in our process.
While both the directors had experience in growing yeast from homebrew starters at home, taking this to a commercial scale where purity and quality are paramount required a lot of learning. Figuring out how to grow yeast on a commercial scale was the second stage in our process, starting with a small scale pilot kit and working after-hours in a shared kitchen facility.
After much trial and error, he yeast we produced on this pilot kit was sent out to breweries for commercial trials. The feedback about the product, packaging, and performance played a key role in informing further product development.
After a successful crowdfunding campaign, we had the capital to upscale to full size production, which would allow us to produce enough yeast to ferment 10-15,000 litres from a single batch. We managed to find manufacturers and suppliers who were able to help us and work to our specific needs, and help to design solutions for challenges specific to our business. Once this plant was landed, we needed to adjust our process to work with the new plant.
From here, our process has been adjusted much more with the introduction of new technology that has given greater insight into our propagations, allowing us to increase yields and hone efficiencies while also maintaining our high standards of yeast health and purity.
13. How did you determine the product’s likely success in the market?
We determined the product's likely success in the market, initially, by performing thorough market research. We were able to organise interviews or focus groups with 15% of the professional breweries around the country to determine their pains, needs, and wants associated with yeast and with the prospect of having a local yeast supplier.
We completed price-point analysis against our overseas competitors, determined our price point against our anticipated COGS, overheads, and competitors pricing, and asked for feedback on this from brewers, validating that our pricing was in the right ballpark to be commercially viable. Our pricing allows brewers access to much larger volumes of liquid yeast than they could get by importing, simply by virtue of being local.
Following on from the overwhelmingly positive feedback from market research, we wanted to further validate this by producing a minimum viable product on a pilot system to verify that brewers would be willing buy and use the product, and get their feedback on the experience of using it and how it performed. 4 commercial batches of beer were produced off this pilot run, and all received positive feedback with the brewers stating they would use the product again.
These 4 commercial beers were released in conjunction with a crowdfunding campaign, where brewers could pledge on the campaign for the first access to Froth liquid yeast, serving to further validate on-going interest by having brewers purchase the product in advance of production. We received pledges from 12 commercial breweries on this campaign.
14. Demonstrate the product/business’s success with sales and distribution information.
Froth Technologies' liquid yeast has been very successful in the domestic market in its first year of existence, with 36 brewery clients and $130,000 of B2B sales conducted in the first eleven months of trading.
Froth Tech yeast has been used in breweries all over the country, from Dunedin to Northland, and right across the spectrum in terms of size of operation. Some of our customers operate breweries producing 100L of beer per batch, with others producing 25,000L, showing that the product appeals to brewers of all sizes and scales, and is able to be used in all types of brewing operations.
The product's success can also be measured in the beers it has contributed to making. A good measure of this is the various beer awards that happen throughout the year. In this years 'New World Beer Awards' beers brewed with our yeast had great success. 3 beers brewed with Froth Tech yeast made it into the top 30, with two of these coming from a client who has not placed in the top 30 before. 10 more beers brewed with Froth Tech yeast made it to the top 100.
