Sprint 3: A Sea-Weed based packaging

For this sprint we created a business that was related to the current consumers need.
We started with looking at environmental problems globally, and what kind of problem stands close to the human being. During this search we found that the ocean is a big topic nowadays. People are starting groups to clean up the beaches, and the biggest ocean clean up project has been launched.
We watched this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA9O9YUbQew) from WWF about plastic pollution and that was the final touch to create our product!

If you want to create a new product, you should always start by making a business plan. This can be done by for example a business model canvas. We created our own business model canvas which can be found in image 1!

Image 1: Business Model Canvas

Within this business model canvas you can find everything we need to start the business. Our resources, our activities, the key partners, our markets and customers. By creating the business model canvas we can show ourselves what is needed and what our goal is!

If we want to zoom in on our customer we take the value proposition and the market & customer segments and we create a value proposition canvas found in image 2.

Image 2: Value Proposition Canvas

We look at our customer, for which we take ekoplaza as an example. The gain for ekoplaza, if they buy our product, is the reduction of plastic packaging within their shop, with a goal to meet the consumers demand, and they are selling healthy and ecological packaging. The pain of sea-weed based packaging is the food safety regulations. To relieve this pain, you use it for packaging within packaging. For example the noodles that have a a packaging with herbs and oil within the noodles packaging can be replaced with the sea-weed based package.

The costs for our idea are not worked out yet but we will focus on the people that will work in the company, production and the supply chain, the product and the prices, the marketing and the sales and distribution.

Image 3: costs

And now one of the most important things, how will you sell your story?
That can be done by using the Golden Circle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNqKZybIdv4 within this youtube video Simon Sinek explains in a detailed and easy way how to use the Golden Circle to create a perfect selling story.

Image 4: The Golden Circle 

WHY do we want to make a packaging of sea-weed?

Video 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA9O9YUbQew

HOW do we want to achieve it?

"If we can produce plastic from seaweed on a large scale this would mean using fewer fossil fuels and freeing up valuable agricultural land for food production". 

• creating packaging that replaces plastic
• keeping or improving the quality of there placement 
• ensuring that the life cycle of the product isn't polluting at any point 
• listening to what the  customer wants 

WHAT is our product? 

Sea-Weed based packaging! 

Image 5: Sea-Weed packaging 

The product has the following characteristics: 

• it dissolves in warm water, making it a zero waste product
• 100% biodegradable and works as a natural fertilizer for plants
• it has 2 years of shelf life, even without preservative 
• nutritious, contains high fiber, vitamins and minerals 
• can be customized to give specific taste, color and brand logo
• printable and heat sealable 

Image 6: Sea-Weed packaging

What stakeholders will be important for us, and which won't be? That can be found within our stakeholder analysis. 

Image 7: Stakeholder analysis

Within these two weeks we created a bio based, innovative solution for a global issue. The sea-weed based product may not be within the supermarket shells within one year, but it is a smart, sustainable and healthy solution to a really big problem within this world. 

Sprint 3: Sea-Weed based packaging

For this sprint we created a business that was related to the current consumers need.
We started with looking at environmental problems globally, and what kind of problem stands close to the human being. During this search we found that the ocean is a big topic nowadays. People are starting groups to clean up the beaches, and the biggest ocean clean up project has been launched.
We watched this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA9O9YUbQew) from WWF about plastic pollution and that was the final touch to create our product!

If you want to create a new product, you should always start by making a business plan. This can be done by for example a business model canvas. We created our own business model canvas which can be found in image 1!

Image 1: Business Model Canvas 

Within this business model canvas you can find everything we need to start the business. Our resources, our activities, the key partners, our markets and customers. By creating the business model canvas we can show ourselves what is needed and what our goal is!

If we want to zoom in on our customer we take the value proposition and the market & customer segments and we create a value proposition canvas found in image 2.

Image 2: Value Proposition Canvas

We look at our customer, for which we take ekoplaza as an example. The gain for ekoplaza, if they buy our product, is the reduction of plastic packaging within their shop, with a goal to meet the consumers demand, and they are selling healthy and ecological packaging. The pain of sea-weed based packaging is the food safety regulations. To relieve this pain, you use it for packaging within packaging. For example the noodles that have a a packaging with herbs and oil within the noodles packaging can be replaced with the sea-weed based package.

The costs for our idea are not worked out yet but we will focus on the people that will work in the company, production and the supply chain, the product and the prices, the marketing and the sales and distribution.

Image 3: Costs 

And now one of the most important things, how will you sell your story?
That can be done by using the Golden Circle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNqKZybIdv4 within this youtube video Simon Sinek explains in a detailed and easy way how to use the Golden Circle to create a perfect selling story.

Image 4: the Golden Circle 

WHY do we want to make a packaging of sea-weed?

Movie 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA9O9YUbQew

HOW do we want to achieve it?

"If we can produce plastic from seaweed on a large scale this would mean using fewer fossil fuels and freeing up valuable agricultural land for food production". 

• creating packaging that replaces plastic
• keeping or improving the quality of there placement 
• ensuring that the life cycle of the product isn't polluting at any point 
• listening to what the  customer wants 

WHAT is our product? 

Sea-Weed based packaging! 

The product has the following characteristics:

image 5: packaging

• it dissolves in warm water, making it a zero waste product
• 100% biodegradable and works as a natural fertilizer for plants
• it has 2 years of shelf life, even without preservative 
• nutritious, contains high fiber, vitamins and minerals 
• can be customized to give specific taste, color and brand logo
• printable and heat sealable  

image 6: packaging

What stakeholders will be important for us, and which won't be? That can be found within our stakeholder analysis. 

Within these two weeks we created a bio based, innovative solution for a global issue. The sea-weed based product may not be within the supermarket shells within one year, but it is a smart, sustainable and healthy solution to a really big problem within this world. 

Sprint 2: Producing Bioethanol out of Brewer's spent grains

Beer Brewery’s waste 

The Beer Brewery’s waste, spent grain, also known as ‘Bierborstel’ in Dutch comes from the Brewing facility at the HAS University of Applied Sciences. After the beer is brewed you are left with a solid residue consisting of exhausted grain husks, from which the carbohydrates are already used. The spent grain is rich in water and has a dry matter of 22%. Spent grain is used a lot in animal feed because it contains a high protein content. 

Brewer’s spent grain is mostly used for animal feed. But is it possible to use it for much more? Why couldn’t it be used as a biofuel? That is why we thought of producing bio ethanol from brewer’s spent grain. Bio ethanol is mostly produced by the sugar fermentation process. It is a clear colourless liquid, it is biodegradable, low in toxicity and causes little environmental pollution. 

You can name a number of benefits for bio ethanol in comparison to conventional fuels. First of all, it comes from a renewable resource, for example a crop or a bio-based waste product. Secondly, transport on roads counts for 22% of all greenhouse gas emissions. But through the use of bioethanol, some of these emissions can be lowered. Thirdly, you can mix bioethanol with petrol which creates a more environmentally friendly fuel for transport. Through this, you can slowly transform the fossil-based economy into a bio-based economy. 

Producing Bioethanol 

The last two weeks we spent a lot of time in the ‘milieuhal’, also called the lab. Within this time period, we tried to make bioethanol out of brewer’s spent grain. We used two different methods. One using enzymes and one without the use of enzymes. We chose to do one process without enzymes, because it takes less time, so that we could also distillate it. 

Within the next two vlogs we show you our processes. 

1.     Enzymatic process

Here you can find the mass balance. It shows all the inputs used for the enzymatic process to make bio ethanol. 

Here you can find the total electricity input of 108.75 kWh. Explained here under is the electricity input step per step. 

 Starch fermentation 

We chose to do two different methods so that we could also try out distillation. In the end we had bioethanol with an alcohol content of 13%! It is not that much, but if it is done in a professional way it is possible to create a higher alcohol level. 

Making bioethanol out of brewer's spent grain is not very efficient, because bioethanol is made out of sugars, and most of the sugars are already taken out of the spent grains during the beer brewing process. Still we wanted to try it out due to it's interesting process, which creates a great learning opportunity. 

Sprint 1: From seed to product

 The municipality of Bergen op Zoom have proposed an assignment for us, namely to convert the current Auvergnepolder into a biobased area. For now, it is simply a classical polder, but the municipality would like to innovate the area. Neighbouring inhabitants of the Auverngepolder are against these plans of change. The municipality therefore asked HAS university to do research and create plans in which local farmers and the GCC will be involved in the new developments.

Our group conducted two interviews. One with the Green Chemistry Campus and one with Green Serendipity. We also hoped for an interview with SABIC, but they did not respond. We chose to interview the Green Chemistry Campus as they have a high level of expertise on circular and biobased economy and are located next to the Auvergnepolder. 

Three students went to the Green Chemistry Campus to conduct an interview with Peter van der Ham. Speaking to him made us realise that focusing on creating a circular economy was more important than creating a biobased economy. This gave us direction for our plan.

Peter also talked a lot about the influence of the government and world leading companies. If we want to change the Auvergnepolder into a biobased innovative area the government and all companies in the area must help to make it happen. It should also create new jobs for the inhabitants of the surrounding area. 

The Green Chemistry Campus is a complex where entrepreneurs, government and knowledge institutions develop new, sustainable materials and chemicals for building materials and the packaging industry. The focus here is on developing new biobased products and ideas.

Institutions that are established on the Green Chemistry campus have already proven on a small scale that they have successful biobased products. They would like to develop these ideas on a large scale, and the Auvergnepolder offers a possibility for this. 

As a layout for the polder, we envisioned having food crops occupy the main parts of the polder. Some crops more adapted to very wet soils, such as switchgrass and rice (yes you can grow it here!) will be planted in areas with higher water content, with legumes as cover crops for the winter, to fix nitrogen in the soil. For the better drained areas, farmers will be able to grow crops which they will be able to sell, as well as selling the waste products as biomass for our onsite bioplastic industry. The crops will be cultivated with a four-stage crop rotation, ensuring that each crop is beneficial to the next one coming, and choosing crops that grow well in the Netherlands. Precision farming will be used including organic fertilizers to minimise the use of fertiliser and pesticides. 

To gain more insight on the production of bioplastics we contacted frontrunner and advisor Green Serendipity. They were able to give us crucial information on which crops to use for which types of plastics, clear or opaque for example. Furthermore, they gave us a clearer view on what to source biomass from, more specifically explaining to us the reasons why growing crops solely for bioplastics wasn’t the most viable solution, which redirected our project towards an approach where crops would be grown for feed/food, and waste products would be used for biofuel. They also mentioned SABIC, telling us they could be a good potential client to turn towards bioplastic production.

Gathering knowledge from the various stakeholders we contacted, we created an idea that will involve Bergen op Zoom, farmers, new entrepreneurs and the Green Chemistry Campus. We called this project from Seed to Product, with good reason.

Our vision for the Auvergnepolder is to create an “industrial” area were entrepreneurs can set up their new company through the Green Chemistry Campus, so that when they are ready to expand and build their own location, they get the opportunity to do so in the industrial area in the Auvergnepolder. 

The industrial area will be 100% green. This means that it will provide its own energy through solar panels and windmills and using geothermal heating. Furthermore, they will have to cooperate with each other to create a circular economy within the industrial area, which will ultimately benefit them economically. Crops will be grown in the Auvergnepolder from which biobased products will be produced, also in the polder. Together with other companies and farmers from the polder, a system to minimise waste streams will be set up to create a circular economy. 

By creating this 100% green industrial area, Bergen op Zoom will be an example for the rest of the Netherlands or even the world, showcasing the possibility to create a business area through cooperation and environmental consciousness. 

Biobased economy integrated into our study programs

Eventhough we all study at the HAS University of Applied Sciences in Den Bosch, everyone learns all kind of different things. We are with five students in which you can find four different studies: International Food & Agribusiness, Environmental Sciences, Businessadministration and Agri-foodbusiness and Horticulture and Business Management. We will explain to you what biobased economy has for influence on our different studieprogrammes. 

The Bio based Economy can have a big influence on the international food & agribusiness. It would mean that most value chains will have to change, trade will be different and everyone should work in a circular economy. Looking at this discipline it will influence the way companies will be advised on sustainability, supply chain management, trade and everything relevant in their personal value chain.

Within the study environmental sciences students have knowledge about the 4 subjects environmental sciences contains: water, air, soil and energy. They learn to think of technological solutions and innovations in order to reduce the use of raw materials, energy and water. They do this in class but also in projects in collaboration with companies.

Businessadministration and Agri-foodbusiness can be a very useful study, for the minor Biobased Economy. BA allows students to gain knowledge with Marketing, Logistics and Economics. This together with the minor Biobased Economy can be a very interesting combination. For BA students there is lots to learn, when following the minor Biobased Economy, but also BA students can bring in knowledge about how to bring certain products into the a market. And which market would be best for the product. Or which and how to transport the product. And how much everything eventually will cost.      

A big part of being successful in horticulture is to find ways to add value to your crops. Being able to convert crop waste into useful and therefore valued products is an excellent way of doing so. Furthermore, agriculture is one of the main pollution causes, and uses astronomical quantities of petrol every year. Finding biobased alternatives for fuel, pesticides, plasics, etc. in the field is crucial with our current environment. This is why a biobased economy links to the field of horticulture and business management.

Why This weblog?

This webblog is created by five students of the HAS University of Applied Sciences. Within this webblog we will show you what the Bio Beasts have been working on and what assignments they got. Feel free to ask us questions.