Sustainability Session
Sylvie Van Zandycke, DSM Food Specialties, South Bend, IN, USA
Co-author(s): Ron Duszanskyj, DSM Food Specialties, Delft, Netherlands; Marlos Fernandes, DSM Food Specialties, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Jeroen van Roon, DSM Food Specialties, Delft, Netherlands
ABSTRACT: Sustainability will be a key differentiator and value driver over the coming decades for the brewing industry, where efficient use of raw material and energy go hand-in-hand with taking environmental responsibility. Exogenous enzymes are flexible tools for meeting the increasing demands for sustainable and cost-effective beer production. However, to make the correct business decisions, the sustainability and economic advantages of enzyme technology should be made explicit and quantifiable on a case-by-case basis. Based on internationally recognized IPCC GWP 100 and Eco-indicator 99 methodologies, a full beer life cycle analysis quantitatively illustrates how enzymes can lower the beer production carbon footprint through efficient use of raw materials, reduction of energy needs, reduction of water usage, and creation of opportunities to remove process steps in malting or brewing operations. The concept of life cycle analysis methodologies and results are presented and discussed. Subsequently, two quantitative examples are given on how to obtain simultaneous financial and environmental benefits. The first example demonstrates how replacing up to 100% of malt with unmalted barley and exogenous enzymes can reduce the carbon footprint of the beer from 17.9 to 14.3 kg CO2 eq/hL of beer, a reduction of 20.1%. A real-life example of a commercial scale beer production with 100% barley is presented; the industrial process conditions and some recommendations are shared. Interestingly, independent physico-chemical and organoleptic analyses performed by the ICBD demonstrated that the quality parameters of the resulting beer were all in the range of a standard lager-type beer, with normal head retention and flavor stability. The second example focuses on energy savings when beer is stabilized with enzyme technology, while simultaneously increasing maturation capacity and decreasing the carbon footprint of the beer. In the example discussed the carbon footprint was reduced by 6.1%, while maturation capacity increased by 50%. Rather then focusing on specific products, this lecture aims to demonstrate the advantages of enzyme technology in general with respect to reducing carbon footprint and costs.
Sylvie Van Zandycke studied biochemical engineering and fermentation at the Institute Meurice (Brussels, Belgium); she completed her degree in 1996. She then obtained her Ph.D. degree on Saccharomyces cerevisiae in 2000 from Oxford Brookes University in the United Kingdom. After that Sylvie was employed as a project manager for the brewing consultancy firm SMART Brewing Services until 2004, when she left the United Kingdom for lovely Montreal, Canada, and accepted a post with Lallemand as a project manager for their Genetic Identification Laboratory, focusing on yeast and bacteria used in alcoholic beverage production. In 2007 Sylvie became technical sales manager for Lallemand Brewing, looking after dry yeast and nutrition products on a global basis. At the end of 2011 she joined DSM Food Specialties, occupying her current position as support service manager for brewing enzymes in North America.
