46 | Whisky Hero
Green machine
What exactly does the whisky industry, a bowl of dog food and an aquatic photosynthetic eukaryotic organism have in common? Written by Morag Bootland
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cotland is brimming with green innovation, but there are few new businesses that are quite as green as MiAlgae. And that’s because MiAlgae are on a mission to produce some seriously nutritious and seriously bright green algae. The starter point for the company, as managing director Douglas Martin explains, was seeing algal blooms proliferating in the North Sea. ‘These blooms are so large that they can be seen from space and I wanted to know how you could capture that huge event and use it for something valuable that could also help the planet.’ The answer was to grow algae in large stainless steel tanks. The algae that MiAlgae cultivate at their site in Balfron is incredibly rich in Omega-3s, which are an essential ingredient in animal feed. Currently, most of the Omega-3 that reaches the food our pets eat comes from fish. Entire shoals are pulled from the sea and minced up to add to pet and animal feed. But here’s the rub. Fish do not produce Omega-3s, they obtain them from the food that they eat, and that food happens to be algae. So, if you can grow nutrient-rich algae to put directly into animal feed, you can cut out the fishy middle man and help save the planet.
Very good, I hear you cry, but what on earth has this got to do with whisky? In their wisdom, the boffins at MiAlgae have realised that they can feed their algae on co-products from the whisky industry. These liquids include the pot ale (or the water left in the wash still after the first distillation), the spent lees (or the liquid left in the spirit still following the second distillation) and the wash water. ‘These co-products from the whisky industry act as food for our algae, and by feeding it to our algae they use up all of the nutrients and leave the water cleaner than when it came to us,’ explained Douglas. ‘So, at the end of the process we are left with clean water amd Omega-3-rich algae.’ These liquids come from a few different distilleries, all of which are top secret while MiAlgae begin to commercialise their product. So, for now, there’s no way to tell if Fido will be chowing down on Speyside’s finest or if he’s more of a Lowland single malt kind of a dog. MiAlgae started up in 2015 and is now through its technical development stage, a process that, as with most bio-tech innovations, took years. But, the algae is ready to roll and with a huge pet and animal feed market ready for an environmentally-friendly alternative to fish, the world is their oyster.
the answer was to grow algae in large stainless steel tanks
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Clockwise from top left: Some of the 18 strong MiAlgae team; founder and MD Douglas Martin; the good, green stuff; Martin from the production team with one of the stainless steel tanks at the Balfron site; the technical development of the product has taken years to get just right.
www.mialgae.com
09/12/2021 12:53:36
