Latest news & stories

Discovering unique health benefits from natural fruit extracts
Blenheim-based New Zealand Extracts is the only company in the world to produce highly bioactive ingredients from locally grown fruits and berries using a unique water extraction process.

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Low-Carbon Beef Snack That’s as Good for the Planet as It Is for You
Māori-owned meat snack start-up Mīti has succeeded in transforming an industry by-product into a high-value export opportunity, creating a new category for sustainable beef snacks.

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Upcycling a mass crop to produce alternative protein products
Hawke’s Bay-based Kabocha Innovations produces Kabocha Milk, a high-quality vegetable milk made by upcycling waste kabocha, or winter squash (also known as Japanese pumpkins). High in Vitamin A, the milk can help to lower cancer risk and also supports eye health. The award-winning product is sold in multiple stores throughout Japan and Hong Kong.

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BPA appoints Max Kennedy as new Board Chair
The BPA has appointed Max Kennedy as its new Board Chair.
Max, a biochemical engineer specialising in fermentation, succeeds Garth Carnaby who retired as Chair last month after nearly a decade of service.

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Bioresource Processing Alliance honours retiring chair, Garth Carnaby
Wool industry expert and prominent industrial technologist Garth Carnaby (CNZM) has announced his retirement as chair of the government-funded Bioresource Processing Alliance (BPA). Dr Carnaby, who is an advisor and consultant in the science, agriculture, manufacturing, food and wool fields, has been chair of the BPA for the past decade and will step down from his role at the end of September.

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“A beautiful example” – how collaboration and big thinking can create global firsts
AgriSea is a Māori-owned family business based in Paeroa which specialises in the manufacture of seaweed products. They’ve been working with Scion, one of the BPA’s four R&D partners, to take the waste stream from the seaweed industry, apply green chemistry and turn it into nanocellulose – a high-value, high-performing material.

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Cetogenix and Scion scale up Anaerobic Digestion technology
A change in market attitudes and needs, leveraging strong local and international relationships, and a new way of thinking have enabled clean-tech start-up Cetogenix to bring world-leading science out of the laboratory and into actuality.

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Ecogas and Scion, launch of Ecogas’ Anaerobic Digestion plant
Scion’s pilot-level research has culminated in Ecogas launching New Zealand’s first commercial scale anaerobic digestion bioenergy plant, showcasing the power of partnership.

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New opportunities with fruit
The quality of Central Otago fruit is world renowned, but not all of it makes it to local and export markets or is processed into a value-added product.

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Paunch Grass and Biogas
Converting partly digested grass from the stomachs of slaughtered cattle into biogas that could be used to sustainably heat commercial greenhouses is the focus of a new 14-month study at Scion.

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Hemp seed by-products into plant-based protein and compounds
New Zealand’s Greenfern Industries is part of a partnership to have received a grant to research potential high value products derived from hemp seed processing waste.

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Fonterra’s Te Awamutu plant utilising wood pellets
There is enough energy left over in forestry residues and other woody waste, such as from orchards, surplus pulp logs, and sawmill chip, to entirely replace the heat and energy demands of all New Zealand’s dairy factories, six times over.

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Distinguished Honour For Callaghan Innovation Scientist
Many congratulations to BPA Board member Owen Catchpole, who was recently made a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi, an honour that recognises distinction in research, scholarship and knowledge advancement.

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Powder to the people
One of the country’s largest avocado growers, Ovāvo, recently began to consider a future for the fruit beyond its fresh form. Read how the support of the BPA has helped seed a new product in powder form.

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Pilot program using flies to make high-protein animal feed
The BPA is a key supporter of the research that underpins the commercial work with Veolia, the provider of waste, water and energy management services.

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Waste-to-energy plant making its mark
Ecogas wins the Low Carbon Future award at the NZ Energy Excellence awards 2023 – a fitting tribute to a partnership first formed with its founding partner EcoStock and Scion in 2016.

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