In the millennia-old quest to find a commercial use for olive-mill waste, PhenOlive flour may have the answer for mills, farmers, and the environment.
Olive farmers invest time, effort and money growing their crop to make oil. But after olives have been squeezed for their liquid, the 85 percent solid that remains often ends up being burned or buried because, frankly, it’s useless. And it’s toxic, and acidic, and it stinks.
Within 15 minutes of the olives being squeezed at an industrial mill, the waste matter, called pomace, starts to oxidize. The nutrients disappear, it becomes unfit for human – or animal – consumption, and it can’t even be used as fertilizer because it contaminates the soil.
Olives are an ancient crop, mentioned numerous times in the Bible, with the earliest known olive mill, in Matera, Italy, dating back to the fourth century BCE.
Yet in all that time, upcycling olive pomace into a useful, successful commercial product has remained elusive.
Win-win
PhenOlives, an Israeli startup, has come up with an innovative win-win for both the farmers and the mills that crush 95% of all olives into oil.
It has perfected a mechanical method of rescuing the waste product in the tight window before it oxidizes, and turning it into gluten-free flour and other commercial products.
More on Earth
PhenOlives presents olive mills with a “total solution” – installing its patented machinery to transform a mountain of smelly leftovers into useful, edible, sellable, profitable products.
This could be a gamechanger for the industry and could provide olive farmers with an extra revenue stream.
There will no longer be trucks lining up at the olive mills to collect tons of byproduct for landfill, says Chen Lev-Ari, the company’s CEO.
Instead the trucks will be delivering high-fiber, low-calorie flour to food manufacturers to turn into bread, pasta, crackers, cookies, brownies, pizza… you name it.
Secret process
So what exactly is the breakthrough? Well, that’s a secret. Lev-Ari says they’ve developed a machine that divides the olive waste into three components — pulp, black water (the wastewater from pressing ) and seeds.
The process is completely natural, doesn’t use chemicals or additives, and is readily incorporated into the existing olive milling process. After the pulp is extracted, it’s dried and then ground into flour.
The technology is patented in Israel and is close to being patented in Europe.
Mill owners in Spain, Greece, Italy and Portugal, among Europe’s biggest olive-producing nations, are blown away when they see it, according to Lev-Ari.
“It’s amazing to see their reaction,” he says. “They’re amazed in a way that it doesn’t surprise us, but it gives us a lot of confidence. As far as we know, we are the only company in the world that has a solution for stopping oxidation in the olive-oil production process.”
Israeli problem-solving
So how did they come up with a way to re-purpose olive waste? “Maybe it’s the Israeli way, how we look at problems,” says Lev-Ari. “We look at the whole problem and break it down into smaller ones.”
It was important to find a solution that didn’t just turn the olive pulp into gluten-free flour. It was all or nothing – they had to deal with the whole 85% of the olives that currently have no use. The olive mills wanted the waste taken off their hands entirely, and that’s what PhenOlives is promising to do.
Lev-Ari says the company, based at the InnoValley Innovation Center in the Beit She’an Valley, is now in talks with major olive millers in hopes of forming strategic partnerships.
Lev-Ari has met dozens of food manufacturers in Israel and Europe to discuss how the olive flour could be used as a gluten-free ingredient, much like almond or chickpea flour. The company has several ongoing pilot projects, and is working with local chefs to develop a range of new recipes.
Nutritious goodies
Olive flour will be PhenOlives’ first commercial product. Lev-Ari is keen to show me brownies, cookies and other goodies baked with it.
The flour will, in most cases, be combined with wheat and other traditional flours. It’s gluten-free, which means it doesn’t have elasticity or water retention properties needed to make bread, but it works well as a minority ingredient in an 80/20 mix with other flours.
It’s fine as a 100% flour for crackers and can be used at 50% for pasta, muffins and pizza crust, and 30% for cookies and brownies. And it boasts all the health benefits of olive oil.
The company is researching other uses for the pulp, as food additives and colorings, and even pet food. It’s also looking at ways to use the nutritious black olive water and the seeds. The latter could be used by non-food industries such as heat and energy production.
PhenOlives has received $760,000 in grants from the Israel Innovation Authority. “Additionally, we are currently raising an investment round to support installation of the first PhenOlives systems in Europe, begin sales of the olive flour, and develop new products from the pulp and black water,” says Lev-Ari.
Source article: Israel21c