How did Nutricq get to this “circular economy” stage of creating premium supplements from discarded retail food and brewery byproducts?

We used to add surplus fruit and veg into stockfeed as a natural form of vitamins and minerals but usually the cooked product smelled soooooo good we thought it must have better qualities than just basic stockfeed.

Nutricq received circular economy grants from the RCOE in Mackay in 2024. The two grants awarded to Nutricq were to focus on

1) using retailers’ surplus fruit and veg to make concentrated natural vitamin and mineral powders for livestock (hence reducing landfill from retailers)

2) make high antioxidant powders from “off-spec” capsicums (hence reducing landfill from growers)

So how did we end up with a high antioxidant powder from the surplus fruit and veg?

With two projects running simultaneously it made sense to “double-up” on analyses and we realised after a while that the best antioxidant levels could in fact be achieved from the broad variety of fruit and veg we collected from local retailers. Rather than focus on particular fruit or vegetables (eg only capsicum) we needed to process “the lot” (at least initially) to see if we could preserve or even elevate antioxidant levels on a broad basis.

A number of different methods were tried and one stood out quite remarkably.

This method became the basis to see how high we could compress the end product with nutrient levels, especially focussing on antioxidant retention.

Finally, we established a repeatable method to make premium high-antioxidant powders.

We then received nutritional guidance on which inputs per species. For example, no nightshade for equine, no onions for companion animals, no avocado seeds for companion animals etc etc.

We also looked into which products are particularly good for a species – eg cauliflower for dogs, citrus peel for horses, low-sugar brewers grain for horses….etc etc.

Nutricq's founder created a novel yeast company in 2007 and his experience from this meant that when the Two Fathoms brewery opened in Airlie Beach it was an opportunity to collect spent yeast and enable the brewer to recycle rather than discard it.

Nutricq dries the yeast and it adds functional qualities to the powders – inactive yeast is a very well proven prebiotic - it feeds beneficial gut bacteria enabling them to outgrow and outcompete the unwanted microbes in the gut. A typical example of how a prebiotic can work is eg, a chronic gut health issue for a dog might be evident in the form of loose stools. This can often be improved in the space of a few days with prebiotics. Long term defence can also be achieved with regular supplemental use.

Nutricq has diverted 100s of tons of fresh food from going to landfill over the past few years and as business grows this becomes more in terms of both volume and importance to the local environment.

The circular economy is alive and well for the Whitsundays.