OnTap Magazine

ontapmag.co.za | Spring 2024 | 39 T he verb distil means “to extract the essential meaning of something.” Since ancient times, there has been a quest to distil the “living spirit” of plants. Naturalists came to associate essential oils as a vital force that clearly identifies the intangibility of the aroma that emanates from them. The story of how Preserve Botanica Hop Oils came about, revolves around the same need for exploration of the unknown. Orig- inating from outside the hop industry and being involved in engineering and medi- cine has proven to be valuable experience for the two founders Wanda du Plessis and Jaco de la Rouviere. Although change is somewhat uncomfortable to suggest, a fresh approach is needed in most industries to ensure progress. The hop industry is no different. The enthusiasm of an entrepreneur is best described by the Beatles in their 1967 single with the simple line “all you need is love”! The team at Preserve Botanica’s phi- losophy is simple: receive with grace, use with kindness and back it up with science! We became hop lovers due to our loca- tion close to the only hop growing region in Africa on the beautiful Garden Route in the Western Cape. As such, living in George provides an invaluable opportuni- ty to develop technology related to hops. The seasonality, short harvest periods and expensive growing conditions requires the industry to rely on quality relationships to prosper. Trust and teamwork are fostered as a culture but most importantly, Preserve Bo- tanica stepped up to meet the challenges facing the industry with innovative solutions and excellent results. Founded in 2018 within AB InBev, 100+ Accelerator was born to engage startups that could solve key sus- tainability challenges for large corporate partners. The program was built to help those startups validate their solution within AB InBev’s operations and, if successful, scale the solu- tion globally. In addition, the program offers expert train- ing, mentorship, preferred payment terms, access to tools and funding. During hop harvest, only the cones are picked for beermaking. The rest of the bine, leaf and bract are discarded. This process results in huge amounts of agricultural waste generated each season. To introduce sustainable sal- vage operations, the Preserve team of engineers firstly had to find a way to arrest the rapid deterioration of hops post processing which sets in within hours. During the 2018 and 2019 har- vest seasons, a patented technology namely PresAr TM was developed to preserve green plant material without any drying for a period of up to six months. This process has been suc- cessfully integrated by the team at Newlands Spring Brewing Company to brew with fresh hops. Secondly, they elected to use discard- ed hop material namely the bract and unprocessed hop cones and leaf for research as not to interfere with opera- tions during the six-week harvest peri- od. Being problem solvers at heart, the engineering team were compelled to look at industrial scale solutions to utilize this wasted opportunity. In the spirit of explorers who came before, steam dis- tillation opted to be the most affordable solution at scale. ‘Garage trials’ in 2021 provided data on possible yields, equip- ment parameters, scalability and cost. In November 2022, the startup was se- lected as a member of Cohort 4 within the Accelerator 100+ program, receiving a grant of USD $100,000 to scale a pilot in the African region with AB InBev. Preserve Botanica’s mission is to be “salvage experts,” preserving every part of the hop plant. For the AB InBev Accelerator 100+ pilot, a 1,050 litre steam distillation unit was designed and built to extract essential oils that can be used in brewing. Hops were collected from two waste streams alongside hop farm operations. These hops were then processed using wet steam to release the aromatic oils we all know so well, as the unique flavour in beer. The oils were handled delicately and as an industry first, refined novel hop oils from local upcycled South African hop varieties were produced. THE CHALLENGE: WORKING WITH LOCAL HOPS: Wanda Du Plessis