Register for free to
view the full innovation profile.
We convert waste milk (and other proteins) into fibres.
Then we put them to work growing plants and soft fruit.
Replacing peat (saving 256 kg CO2e per m3)!
About
Grouse Fibre creates materials for life.
Specifically, we develop and produce filaments from proteins at a cost designed to be compatible with the agricultural industry. We take proteins from existing streams (casein from milk, zein from soy, waste nutmeal) and extrude them into fibres.
These fibres are useful.
One application is to augment and improve peat-free growing mediums to solve some of the pain points in transitioning away from Peart.
Key Benefits
Proteins are fantastic materials. They have properties not replicated by synthetics or cellulose. The peptide backbone is the building block of life and can be used to make fibres as strong as spidersilk, provide our skin with elasticity and can from hard protective structures as keratin.
For our principal users, protein fibres combine structural strength with moisture management and nitrogen content. This can significantly add fertility and stability to a growing medium and enable more technical alternatives to peat.
Our technology is formaldehyde and acrylate free, we use only soil-friendly natural crosslinkers. This enables us to build fibres at a cost competitive rate whilst maintaining the key benefits of the protein chains.
We know the use cases of protein fibres are manifold and we believe our technology platform can enable a new range of applications and uses for this material.
Applications
Target-market:
The UK's horticulture sector consists of 3,600 farms cultivating 161,000ha (ONS/Defra, 2022).
Average 2022 income was £51.1k, with 8% attributable to Direct-Payment subsidies. Of their output, fruit accounted for 3% (£0.9bn) of UK agricultural products.
Early adopters will be the UK's 124 peat-free nurseries (RHS, 2023). Their commitment to sustainable soil conditioners means they are incentivised to trial DairyPeat earlier than others.
Market-size:
The global market for growth media/soil conditioners (TAM) was $6.4bn(£5.03bn) in 2022, growing 9.4% CAGR to $14.2bn(£11.2bn) by 2032 (MarketResearchFuture,2024).
In 2022, 3.96m cubic-metres of growing media worth £238m were sold across UK horticulture, soft-fruit and mushrooms (SAM)(HTA, 2023), The professional portion of this (SOM) accounted for 1.05m cubic-metres (£63m). Large grower networks and commercial growers (e.g. AMFresh) constitute ~30% of this.
A related secondary market is textile material for other agricultural applications (e.g. mulch-mats, films). This UK agro-textiles/films market is worth £480m growing 7.3% CAGR to 2030 (DEFRA, 2020).