By-product synergy is a win-win strategy that a growing number of organizations across a variety of industries and sectors are wisely incorporating: NYC is using food waste to heat homes; Milwaukee is using cheese brine to de-ice its roads in winter; Pulp Green Tech Holding is creating a high-grade paper pulp from empty palm fruit bunches; EnviroFlight is turning the by-product from breweries, ethanol production, and pre-consumer food waste into a feedstock for fly larvae — which then become food for fish and livestock ...
And now, an enterprising operation called CF Global Holdings (CFG), has announced the launch of Coffee Flour™, a new type of flour derived from coffee cherries.
Coffee cherry pulp is a typically discarded byproduct of coffee production; now Belliveau’s process dries and mills the coffee cherry pulp into Coffee Flour, upcycling a previously wasted material into an additional and sustainable source of revenue for small-scale coffee farmers worldwide.
CF Global focuses on improving the sustainability of coffee-growing communities around the world by creating new revenue sources for farmers, pickers and mills while reducing the environmental impact of coffee production. Coffee Flour's inventor, CFG founder and CEO Dan Belliveau, worked closely with Intellectual Ventures® (IV®) over the past two years to develop the technical process of converting the coffee cherry pulp into nutritious, gluten-free flour.
But it turns out these cherries pack a wollop of previously wasted nutrition, as well – CFG says they contain three times the antioxidants of blueberries and more natural fiber than wheat, while being gluten-free.
“When coffee is processed, the bean is separated from the cherry and the bean goes in one direction, the cherry pulp is put into a pile and dealt with after harvest,” Belliveau explains in the video. “Getting rid of the pulp is to push it into rivers, and it is a negative impact to the environment,” which include dumping ochratoxins, acra toxins, mycotoxins and caffeine into waterways.
In addition to the environmental and nutritional benefits of Coffee Flour, CFG plans to share proceeds from its sale with the mills and farmers involved in its production, according to CFG co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer Andy Fedak.
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