- Where did the name brewbee come from?
brewbee combines the words “brew” and “bee”. brewbee is a new food-upcycling start-up at Brauerei Locher in Appenzell, which was founded to cleverly reduce the amount of food waste from the brewing process. We buzz around like busy worker bees, working hard to keep on creating new sustainable products. And that’s why we ended up with the name brewbee.
- What exactly is upcycling?
Upcycling isn’t quite the same as recycling. The idea is to upgrade something to add new value. Exploiting unused by-products reduces the demand for newly produced raw materials, which allows us to save on our precious resources.
- What makes brewbee products sustainable?
brewbee rescues valuable by-products from the brewery and transforms them into delicious food for you. We are passionate about ensuring that all the tonnes of unused by-products – and all the important nutrients and fibre inside them – are not simply wasted. Instead, we make sure that they are fed back into the natural cycle as delicious food we can all enjoy. This is why we created brewbee in the first place.
- Are brewbee products good for you too?
All our brewbee products contain valuable brewery by-products, including aromatic spent grain, vibrant brewer’s yeast, low-alcohol beer and intense beer wort. Packed with plant-based proteins, minerals and fibre, they are a smart and nutritious choice.
- Do brewbee products make you drunk?
brewbee products leave you feeling full and happy but definitely not drunk. There’s not a trace of alcohol in any of our products because it doesn’t develop until much later on in the beer brewing process.
- What’s the difference between a traditional pizza and a brewbee Pizza?
The secret to our brewbee Pizza is in the base. It’s packed with valuable brewery by-products like brewer's yeast and spent grain alongside the flour you’d expect. Natural and sustainable all the way. You certainly won’t find any artificial additives in any of our brewbee Pizzas.
- Are all brewbee ingredients sourced from Switzerland?
brewbee products are developed and made at our start-up in Appenzell. All our ingredients come from local Swiss suppliers, which allows us to keep transportation to the absolute minimum.
- Why is the proportion of valuable by-products not higher?
We are careful about the proportion of by-products we use in all our brewbee products. In other words, we don’t favour sustainability over taste to the extent that our products are so full of by-products that they taste awful. Creating products that people don’t enjoy eating isn’t going to do the environment any good at all. That’s why we’re careful to get the balance between flavour and sustainability spot on for all our products. The more brewbee products we invent, the more unused by-products we can rescue and put to good use. And we promise you that we have plenty more plans and ideas up our sleeves.
- Is brewbee packaging recyclable?
We never stop striving to be better. As part of this ongoing mission, we’re gradually making the packaging for our products more environmentally friendly and strengthening our sustainability strategy wherever we can. Having said that, food safety is our top priority, with all our customers in mind. The packaging we’re using at the moment is aligned with this priority, providing us with the best-possible way of protecting brewbee products, preserving their flavours and getting them to you in perfect condition.
- What action is brewbee taking to combat climate change?
It goes without saying that we’re constantly striving to reduce our carbon footprint.
Ralph Streule
Food is what gets Ralph’s heart racing. A trained chef himself,
Ralph took various training courses before moving into purchasing and ultimately ending up in food sales – a career that suits him perfectly. With a wealth of valuable expertise behind him, Ralph has hit the ground running at brewbee. Besides his family and friends, music is an important part of his life in both an active and passive capacity. As a lover of good food, Ralph has found his dream employer in brewbee.