12 February 2024
Achtergrondartikelen
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An article by Brightlands Campus Greenport Venlo
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Together with her father, 25-year-old Saar has been building Monastery Brewery Steyl for the past few years, where they have their own production space with a tasting room a stone's throw away, the place where they host more and more tastings. Among other things, they brew the "Bread Beer," a beer where leftover bread has been used in the brewing process.
Saar held the Venlo Lecture 2024 a few weeks ago. During this lecture, she spoke about her intolerances and the benefits of pure and sustainable food. In doing so, she mentioned initiatives that have emerged on campus, such as Kokkerelli, which wants to make a vegetable-rich lunch the standard at Dutch elementary schools. Below, Saar aroused our attention. We asked her about her motivations for entrepreneurship, where she sees opportunities in the future and how she got in touch with the campus.
How the 'Bread Beer' initiative came about
In 2023 I did my graduation assignment for the Food Innovation course at the HAS Green Academy in Venlo. In 10 weeks we had to develop a concept. At that time, I was already working with my father to further develop Kloosterbrouwerij Steyl. I learned at school that bread is one of the most wasted foods. So I immediately saw an opportunity to collaborate with the baker with whom we share our production space. The baker kept leftover bread and we kept leftover brewers' grains. This brewers' grains are high in protein and energy. The idea then came to incorporate this leftover product into bread. In addition, the old bread was reused in our brewing process.
In addition, we were at IJver, the special beer festival in Venlo, where a manager of a Venlo Jumbo branch came up to us, saying that they often have leftover bread. I then started to see if we could use this bread in our brewing process, in order to prevent waste at the supermarket. This moved our 'Bread Beer' concept further and further into the waste piece.
Final goal with 'Bread Beer'
We are finding that we are brewing the Bread Beer more and more often, it is therefore our best-selling beer. This is probably partly because of the waste story behind this beer, but also because it is a Dark Ale. Besides Bread Beer, we have several beers at Kloosterbrouwer Steyl, such as a blonde beer, a monastery triple and an abbey beer. We would also like to develop a bread beer with the monastery's herbal liqueur, the Steyler Hemel Bread Beer. We would like to further expand these batches of the "Bread Beer," to reduce waste.
Where can you find Bread Beer
.We are currently selling the Bread Beer ourselves. Even though we are not open by default, we always try to find a way to deliver something to interested parties. You can find us on our social media channels or take a look at our website. We also deliver to a number of catering establishments in the area, such as the liquor store in Tegelen, a deli in Blerick, Beers & More in Venlo and the Hertog Jan Proeflokaal. We are currently still selective about where we sell the Bread Beer. Eventually we want to sell our beers through our own tasting room. For sales outside our tasting room, we think it's important that we can deliver consistently.
What is it like to be a start-up at this young age?
Most of all, a lot of fun. I find it very special to be able to do this together with my father. Since I have developed certain intolerances, I have become more involved in nutrition. At first I mainly maintained the social media of my father's company, who has been a beer sommelier for some time. Slowly this grew on and we expanded it together. Doing business together goes very well and we both get a lot of energy from it. My mother and brother also work behind the scenes, which strengthens the family bond.
I do sometimes find myself running out of time. In addition to our own company, I also have a job four days a week. My father and I are convinced that every minute we put in now will pay off in a while. Ideally, I would like to end up doing business full-time.
Where do you still see opportunities for circular food developments? And in the area of intolerances?
I think there are an awful lot of opportunities to reuse food products. You also see it coming more and more and I think there is still a long way to go. From my tolerances, I see that in the beginning there were few palatable alternatives for a lactose and fructose intolerance. Already there are more and more alternatives, think of cappuccino. An oat cappuccino is currently more popular than a normal cappuccino. Also, again the bridge to Monastery Brewery Steyl. I think it would be great to develop a menu for our tasting room where people with an intolerance can put it aside for a while. The aim here is to only use pure products.
How are you familiar with Brightlands Campus Greenport Venlo?
I followed the course 'cooking inspiration' on campus, from my education at the HAS. I also did an internship at Hela, who also rented a box on campus. In addition, I attended the 'Just Eat It' symposium. I find the campus an inspiring environment! The epicenter where new innovations and ideas in the field of healthy food arise.