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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Kern Tec Upcycles Stone Fruit Pits Into Oils and Alternative Dairy Products

One of the best parts about summer (in my opinion) is that it is stone fruit season, and I always look forward to consuming an abundance of nectarines, apricots, cherries, plums, and peaches. After the vibrant, juicy fruit flesh is devoured, the rock-hard pit is leftover. Pits are not obviously edible and seem like something you would just toss in the garbage or compost. However, a start-up called Kern Tec, based in Austria, is developing methods to transform the discarded pits from fruit to create a variety of consumer packaged good products.

This week I spoke on the phone with Sebastion Jeschko, one of the co-founders of Kern Tec, who said that the inspiration to start the company came when he and his co-founders spoke with local farmers about what part of the stone fruit industry most often went to waste. After processing fruit, there was no obvious use for the pits, which molded quickly and were considered waste. The challenging part of using pits is extracting the seed from the hard outer hull. While the company can’t yet disclose many details on the process, Kern Tec has figured out how to separate these seeds from the outer hull. Once extracted, they can be used as regular nuts, as stone fruit seeds contain a high amount of protein, healthy unsaturated fats, and vitamin E.

At the moment, the company has two products available on the market in Europe. One is a chocolate nougat spread made from a base of upcycled apricot seeds. The other is various oils made from the seeds of plum, apricot, and cherries, which according to Jeschko, has a sweet, fruity taste. Kern Tec is currently in the process of developing non-dairy milk and yogurt alternatives from pits, and will also eventually create a protein powder.

With more and more mouths to feed on a daily basis, it doesn’t make sense to toss things like agricultural side streams that have the potential to be transformed into food. To that end, plenty of other companies are now developing uses for these side streams. The Supplant Company upcycles post-harvest byproducts from wheat, rice, and corn crops to create a new type of sugar. Coffee cherries, the vibrant red fruit that surrounds a coffee bean, is normally tossed, but The Coffee Cherry Co. upcycles this product to create a powder for baked goods and teas. In addition to upcycling agricultural side streams, there are a plethora of companies using food that would otherwise go to waste to create new products.

Kern Tec is currently in the three-month-long incubator through ProVeg International, and which is set to finish in the next few weeks. The startup is currently talking with investors, and after the program, will be closing its first funding round.

Kickstarter: Koup is a Shirt Infused With Cinnamon

I’m currently on a diet and one of the things I miss most is cinnamon rolls. Between the smell and the sticky sweetness, they are the perfect morning treat (that is so not perfect for you).

While I may not be able to eat my cinnamon fix any longer, a project on Kickstarter will let me wear shirts made from my favorite spice. Koup has raised nearly $70,000 on the crowdfunding platform to make shirts partially out of recycled polyester and infused with . . . cinnamon.

The Koup campaign page claims that cinnamon is anti-microbial and anti-odor while being 100 percent natural. They do not say whether or not your sweat will smell like a food court Cinnabon — which, I would 100 percent endorse.

Whether or not the cinnamon really is a wonder ingredient when it comes to keeping your clothes fresh, the shirts are also partially made from recycled plastic bottles and people who purchase them are encouraged to send the shirts back to Koup so they can be recycled into new yarn.

All this cinnamon-y, eco goodness doesn’t come cheap. To get one Koup T-shirt, you need to pledge $36 plus shipping. Which, in the grand scheme of things isn’t that ridiculous for a shirt anymore.

Koup’s campaign comes at a moment when the world is reflecting on and taking action against our growing plastic waste problem. So kudos to them for considering this issue and adding a little, err, spice to it.

The company is using a Taiwanese manufacturer, so perhaps it can sidestep some of the impacts the deadly Coronavirus is having on other Kickstarter projects manufacturing in mainland China.

Render Teams Up with Chefs to Upcycle Whey, Pickle Juice and Quinoa

I’ve been walking the seemingly neverending show floor of the Winter Fancy Food Show this week in San Francisco, scouting out new products and eating my body weight in cheese samples.

I was especially excited to talk to Render, a brand from the culinary innovation company Pilot R&D. Unlike Pilot R&D, which helps develop products for CPG companies, Render collaborates with chefs to make their own edible (and drinkable) goods for consumers. As Render CEO and co-founder Dana Peck told me: “We’re bringing the restaurant experience to people at home.”

Most interestingly: Render is making said ingredients out of food products that would normally go to waste. The first product, which launched in 2017, is State Bird Crunch, for which Render teamed up with the culinary crew at San Francisco’s State Bird Provisions to develop a product inspired by a quinoa dish on the latter’s menu. State Bird Provisions often had quinoa leftover at the end of the night, and to avoid throwing it out, would crisp it up with nuts and seeds and use it as a topping. Render took that concept and turned it into snackable bits of puffed quinoa/sunflower/sesame nuggets.

State Bird Crunch comes in three flavors (my personal favorite was almond rosemary). Peck told that ME that, as with all their products, the Crunch can be used in multiple ways: it can be crumbled into a topping for yogurt or salads, or you can just shovel it into your mouth by the handful (it’s really addictive stuff). State Bird Crunch is currently available in natural food stores across the country, as well as Whole Foods in Northern California, Fairway in NYC, and online. A 3.5 ounce bag retails for $4.99, which is roughly on par with other artisanal granola products.

Left: Bryner, right: Weyla.

Earlier this year, Render launched two upcycled beverages: Weyla and Bryner. Weyla is made from repurposed whey from California’s Pt. Reyes Creamery. The whey is combined with fruit, herbs, and botanicals, then carbonated for a lightly-sweet drink. Bryner is made of leftover pickle juice from a Sonoma pickle factory; its flavor skews savory, with ingredients like beets, horseradish, and carrots. As with the State Bird Crunch, the drinks are versatile: they can be sipped as-is or used as a mixer for a cocktail or mocktail. Weyla retails for $3.99 and Bryner for $3.79, and both are available in Fairway, through the Bay Area’s Rainbow Grocery, and online.

Based in Berkeley, CA, Render currently a team of seven people. The company does a good job capitalizing off of a few big food trends. First, they partner with well-known chefs (like those of State Bird Provisions) to help them develop their products. Secondly, they’re making products that can serve double, and sometimes even triple, duty in the kitchen. Third, and most importantly, they’re upcycling food waste products, a trend that companies like Pulp Pantry and Toast Ales are also taking advantage of. (In addition to being great PR, repurposing traditional waste ingredients is also just a budget-friendly way to source ingredients.)

It’s also worth keeping an eye on Render because of their parent company, Pilot R&D. A few months ago Pilot R&D CEO Ali Bouzari blew our minds when he spoke to Mike Wolf and suggested that robots can make food taste better by closely emulating top chefs. Render may not have any robots involved (yet), but they’re also working to democratize the dishes and flavors that come out of high-end restaurants. And that’s more exciting than all the cheese samples put together.

Ali Bouzari is speaking at Articulate, our food robotics and automation summit in San Francisco on April 16th! Check out the full lineup here and get your tickets while the getting’s good.