As the world's leading brewer, AB InBev constantly seeks to uncover innovative ways to lead and grow the category while realizing the full potential of its ecosystem and global impact.

The best example of this focus is EverGrain, a venture incubated in ZX Ventures – AB InBev’s global innovation and investment group.

EverGrain is a sustainable ingredient company that captures the barley protein left over from the beer-making process and transforms it into nutrient-rich food and beverages. Founder Greg Belt, who led the global sustainability program for AB InBev, developed the venture concept for EverGrain after daily observations of barley entering their breweries in huge quantities, while barley protein left the same facilities in equal quantities for landfills or distant cattle farms.

Determined to find a better way to leverage the nutritional potential of the leftover barley, Belt and the EverGrain team collaborated with a Minnesota startup to create a protein isolate from spent barley, leading to its flagship product, EverPro.

EverPro easily mixes into a variety of food and beverages with lower land use, water and carbon footprints than other proteins, thanks to its proprietary Upcycled Certified™ process.

EverGrain is a sustainable ingredient company that captures the barley protein left over from the beer-making process and transforms it into nutrient-rich food and beverages. Founder Greg Belt, who previously led the global sustainability program for AB InBev, developed the venture concept for EverGrain after daily observations of barley entering their breweries in huge quantities, while barley protein left the same facilities in equal quantities for landfills or distant cattle farms.

Determined to find a better way to leverage the nutritional potential of the leftover barley, Belt collaborated with a Minnesota startup to create a protein isolate from BSG.

EverGrain’s protein product, EverPro®, easily mixes into a variety of food and beverages with lower land use, water and carbon footprints than other proteins, thanks to its proprietary Upcycled Certified™ process.

EverGrain’s flagship product, EverPro, is a fully soluble, low viscosity protein isolate. It converts the otherwise-lost nutrition in leftover barley into reasonably priced consumable protein products.

Primarily serving the sports nutrition market, EverPro is easily mixed into food and beverages, and is used in various applications including sports nutrition powders and drinks, hydration stick powders, plant-based milk, tea, and coffee. EverPro can also be used to enhance the flavor and nutritional profile of ice cream, smooth puddings or mousses, and yoghurts.

EverGrain’s customers include food and beverage manufacturers looking to improve the nutritional content and taste of their products with a reduced environmental impact. EverPro protein isolate no incremental land use and a lower carbon footprint than other proteins – highlighting a few benefits of EverGrain’s planet-friendly and circular approach to upcycling barley.

Across five years of rigorous R&D, the EverGrain team developed, tested, and refined their barley upcycling processes before opening a pilot plant in Newark, New Jersey to produce sustainable protein at scale.

This investment positioned EverGrain for a full launch, where they unveiled their flagship product, EverPro – a fully soluble, low viscosity, protein isolate. EverPro converts otherwise-lost barley protein into reasonably priced high-protein products low in saturated fats and carbohydrates.

EverGrain’s growth was amplified by the scale and agility of AB InBev’s robust innovation ecosystem, particularly its ZX Ventures arm. This includes access to manufacturing and research teams and partners and funding (including over $100M for a full-scale production facility in St. Louis, Missouri).

EverGrain successfully launched a net-new company capable of dramatically improving nutrition and sustainability in global food systems through a circular beer-brewing process.