The world population is growing much faster than the available area suitable for farmland. To secure sufficient food for future generations, a more plant-based diet is foreseen. Yet also plant-based food production has its limitations. In the Netherlands alone, more than 5 billion ton of wet ‘by-products’ are produced, such as potato peels, brewers’ spent grain and pulp from the production of vegan milk alternatives. Their high water content makes them highly perishable and expensive to transport. The best current solution for these products is to sell them as wet animal fodder, if sufficient farm animals are nearby. The European population of pig/bovine farm animals is shrinking and projected to shrink even faster due to for example the shift to more plant-based diets and restrictions on ammonia emissions. So the ‘easy way out’ of disposing as wet fodder may become harder.

Drying these materials using regular drying equipment is often too costly and would result in high carbon emissions.
Multiphase Dryers develops a new generation of dryers for biobased bulk materials that allows for cost efficient and mild drying using low grade residual heat, often readily available on-site. If dried, they can be upgraded into high end food ingredients. Using the dryers of Multiphase Dryers, heat that normally is released up the chimney can now be harnessed to power the drying process.