ST. LOUIS — Just a hundred yards from the impressive 142-acre Anheuser-Busch brewery, spent barley, which was previously used to brew beers like Michelob Ultra and Bud Light, is beginning an exciting new chapter. Each day, hundreds of pounds of this brown slurry, once destined for animal feed or landfills, flow through a long silver pipe that connects the brewery to EverGrain, a startup established by the beer giant in 2020. At EverGrain, this barley is transformed for future use in a variety of food and beverage products.
Greg Belt, a former global vice president for sustainability at AB InBev and now the head of EverGrain, has often been told that his idea is impractical or a waste of time. However, he is on the brink of proving his critics wrong while simultaneously working to eliminate millions of pounds of food waste. “We can only make a difference in the world when we’re at scale and we’re in these consumer products,” Belt stated from EverGrain’s headquarters. “We’re approaching a pivotal moment in the next five to ten years where barley will become a significant source of protein, alongside soy and pea in the market.”
EverGrain’s barley protein is marketed under the brand name EverPro. This versatile powder is being incorporated into various products, including crackers in collaboration with Post Holdings, nutritional supplements from Nestlé’s Garden of Life, and a nonalcoholic beer from Athletic Brewing. Additionally, EverGrain is actively partnering with companies to integrate EverPro into items like ice cream, nut butter, sports nutrition drinks, and endurance bars.
Nonetheless, EverPro faces several challenges before it can achieve the same level of acceptance seen with peas and soybeans in the food industry. Major food manufacturers need reassurance that EverPro can be reliably supplied at a sufficient scale to launch products without concerns over supply shortages—a goal that Belt asserts EverGrain has met. There is also hesitation among larger producers to invest time and resources in reformulating existing products, which is why they often prefer to add EverPro to new product launches.
Moreover, large consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers, who have had to settle for other plant-based alternatives, approach new options like spent barley with a degree of skepticism, according to Belt. To alleviate these concerns, EverGrain develops prototypes of products made with EverPro, showcasing their taste, protein content, and solubility to potential clients. Belt mentioned that his company is collaborating with many of the world’s leading food companies—though he refrained from naming them or the specific items in development—and he “wouldn’t be surprised” if products using EverPro appear on shelves this fall or in spring 2024.
Currently, the Missouri facility serves as a proof of concept while production scales up and AB InBev evaluates future demand for EverPro. Although EverGrain is not yet profitable, it could reach that milestone by late 2024 after increasing its production capacity. “Given that we’re utilizing a byproduct, the profitability threshold is relatively low,” Belt pointed out.
Mark Sorrells, a professor of plant breeding and genetics at Cornell University, commended EverGrain’s commitment to sustainability and suggested that its barley-based offerings could capture consumer interest due to their novelty. “Spent grains have been used for livestock feed for decades,” Sorrells remarked. “What EverGrain is doing sounds quite innovative.”
Globally, the brewing sector generates around 9 million metric tons of spent grain annually, with about 16%—approximately 1.4 million metric tons—originating from AB InBev, according to Belt. At the company’s expansive brewery in St. Louis, used barley reaches EverGrain roughly ten minutes after being discarded (currently, EverGrain utilizes only about 20% of the leftover grain in St. Louis). Upon arrival at a 118-year-old building that once functioned as a fermentation cellar for beer, EverGrain processes the barley through an intricate system of pipes and tanks, some as large as 60,000 gallons. This process, which takes 12 to 24 hours, involves drying and filtering the barley to extract the medium-sized proteins needed. To minimize its environmental impact, EverGrain employs reverse osmosis to recycle water and sources renewable energy from Anheuser-Busch.
As the sole owner of EverGrain, AB InBev provides numerous advantages to the startup. It not only supplies funding through its venture arm, ZX Ventures, but also offers critical support in areas like technology, food safety, and quality assurance. The global presence of the beer giant lends EverGrain instant credibility, with the capacity to significantly increase production to meet demand when necessary. “This has been a tremendous guiding light for us,” Belt stated. “It has allowed us to scale up much faster than a startup without such support.”
Beyond the backing from the beer giant, EverPro has several attributes that make it more appealing than other protein options, including whey or plant-based alternatives. According to Belt, the product is competitively priced, boasts a sustainability advantage, and has lower astringency compared to other plant-based products. EverPro is easily digestible, rich in fiber and minerals, and possesses anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties—further enhancing its appeal as a functional food ingredient. Additionally, it behaves like a dairy protein, allowing manufacturers to substitute it easily.
EverPro’s barley powder features low viscosity and high solubility, which means it can be effectively absorbed into products like energy drinks, raising their protein content to nearly 40 grams—a feat previously achievable only with traditional milk products like Coca-Cola’s Fairlife or newer clear whey protein drinks such as IsoPure’s. “If we weren’t addressing real problems, we wouldn’t be experiencing this commercial traction,” Belt noted.
Ingredients like peas often come with flavor or color limitations that restrict their usage in products; EverPro faced similar challenges initially. The original EverPro had a dark brown hue and flavor notes of caramel, coffee, and cereal, making it more suitable for beverages like coffee or chocolate. EverGrain has since refined the spent barley to eliminate much of the color and flavor while preserving the beneficial nutrients.
EverGrain’s plant, which underwent a $100 million renovation and opened last year, can produce approximately 7,000 tons of EverPro annually. However, Belt stated that the company is not yet fully utilizing its capacity, leaving room to collaborate with other food and beverage manufacturers or to supply more product to existing partners if their offerings succeed. For some smaller companies, EverPro can constitute up to 90% of their formulations.
“Some feedback we’ve received is, ‘Greg, be sure to support us as we grow; we’re here for you when our product takes off,’” Belt shared. “You need multiple lottery tickets. If one succeeds, you must be able to support it, so there’s an optimal threshold where you can’t have too many bets; otherwise, you risk getting into trouble.”