From coffee waste to livestock feed: LIFE ECOFFEED gives spent coffee grounds a second life

Coffee consumption worldwide generates vast amounts of waste, including spent coffee grounds (SCG) and coffee capsules, which must be properly managed. At the same time, projections indicate that livestock numbers in Europe will increase by 70% over the next 25 years, while most of their diets are currently composed mainly of imported materials.

By combining these two challenges and giving this food industry by-product a second life, LIFE ECOFFEED reduces organic waste going to landfills and creates circular economy opportunities within the agri-food sector.

The innovation behind LIFE ECOFFEED

The project's innovation lies in the creation of a complete strategy for recovering and processing spent coffee grounds (SCG) into safe, high-value and nutritionally viable ingredients for animal diets. The team tackled multiple challenges across the value chain, including logistics, processing, feed formulation, and scale-up. 

The initial animal trials presented promising results, confirming the technical feasibility of the solution. At the same time, the team is actively engaging with investors and authorities, like the Basque Government, to demonstrate the economic viability of the project.

A circular business model in development
 

The LIFE ECOFFEED project is now focused on defining a business plan that appeals to both private and public investors. Their aim is to create a sustainable, regionally replicable model where coffee waste generators, processors, and livestock end-users are connected across a viable value chain.
David San Martín, the project's coordinator, is confident about the future. “We believe there’s strong interest from both public and private sides, especially given the environmental and economic benefits. Our strategy includes diversifying raw materials and clearly demonstrating profitability - not only from revenues, but also from the public costs saved by reducing landfill use.”

C2M support - accelerating market readiness and opening doors to investors
 

The support offered by LIFE’s C2M activities was especially valuable during the project’s final phase, as it helped the team explore market readiness and connect with investors, according to the project’s coordinator. While additional support is still needed to fully implement the business strategy, the team believes in the potential of their model.
The programme was also “key” to the technical achievements of the project. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t have had the resources to develop the trials, reach this TRL, collect large volumes, or  get so close to the market. Perhaps we could have carried out small trials, but not at this scale. So, for me, it’s been very important”, states David San Martín.

The project supports the EU Circular Economy Action Plan, the European Green Deal and the EU long-term Climate Action Strategy. Learn more about this initiative, which focuses on agriculture, waste use, circular economy and value chains related themes by exploring our project fiche.

How LIFE helps close-to-market projects
 

LIFE ECOFFEED is one of the projects supported under LIFE’s close-to-market (C2M) activities.
The LIFE C2M initiative supports LIFE beneficiaries in advancing their innovative solutions towards market uptake. Projects benefit from the support of an experienced team providing business coaching, advisory on business plan development, pitching presentation preparation and connections to relevant experts, among other services.

Looking for support to develop your clean-tech solution and bring it to the market? Check out our LIFE Close-to-Market webpage.