Plant-based ingredient manufacturer Whole. announced it has received funding to transform potato waste into a more sustainable and effective novel feedstock.
The company was one of six groups to receive grant funding from the South‐West WA Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hub (SW WA Hub). Last year, Whole. raised $1.5 million in a seed funding round to support development of its WINX (Whole Ingredient Nutrient Extraction) technology.
According to the company, the technology uses ultra-high pressure to ‘explode’ the cells of the input ingredient, which significantly enhances its nutritional value and makes it more bioavailable in the body. Whole. also claims WINX is free from any chemical processing, produces no waste, and maintains the nutritional integrity of the original ingredients.
Whole. said that while other research has been conducted on using potato waste as a suitable animal feed, the transformational nature of the project is primarily embodied in the use of the WINX technology, which the company expects will increase livestock productivity through improvements in feed conversion ratio.
Whole. added that the project also aims to reduce carbon emissions both through an improvement in production efficiencies, and through an optimised usage of potato waste that would otherwise largely contribute to landfill.
Food Innovation Australia Limited (FIAL) estimates that Australia produces roughly 7.6 million tonnes of food waste per year, the equivalent of $36.6 billion in costs to the economy. The research also showed that the amount of land used to grow wasted food in Australia covers more than 25 million hectares, a landmass larger than the state of Victoria.
Besides generating evidence of the efficiency of potato peel-based feed products, Whole. said the project would help determine what ancillary processes are needed to accomplish high feed rates, dewatering, transportation and storage of feed product.
The SW WA Hub, led by the Grower Group Alliance and funded by the Australian Government’s $5 billion Future Drought Fund program, aims to improve the drought resilience and preparedness of local farmers and their communities, and foster agricultural innovation.
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