
Grassa helps farmers, nature and climate with grass biorefinery
The Netherlands is full of grass, but apart from feeding it to cows, we do little with it. Start-up Grassa is going to change this. By refining grass, the Netherlands needs to import less soy from felled virgin forest, the nitrogen and CO2 emissions of farms decrease, the manure surplus decreases and cows get feed that is easier to digest. The new pilot plant will save dairy farms 9.5 megatons of CO2.
Refining oil to make petrol and other important raw materials and fuels, we know. But grass? Yet that is exactly what Grassa does. By pressing, heating and filtering grass, the Limburg-based company’s biorefinery extracts proteins, sugars, minerals and alternative fertilisers from the grass. The grass that remains, so-called decorticated grass, is more sustainable and goes back to the farmer as roughage for his cows. This grass is easier for the cow to digest than silage grass. As a result, its manure contains 30 per cent less ammonia and 30 per cent less phosphate, and the cow emits 10 to 15 per cent less CO2 in the form of methane.

Protein from grass makes soy imports unnecessary
Protein from grass is an alternative to the soy currently fed to pigs and chickens and could eventually – if the law allows it in the future – be incorporated into plant-based food for consumers. This could reduce soy imports from areas where cultivation displaces food production or damages local ecosystems through deforestation and water use. This is why the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality assigns the company an important role in the National Protein Strategy. That aims to become less dependent on soy imports. ‘What the cow puts in the manure, we take out. Through Grassa’s process, 50 per cent more food is extracted from each hectare of grassland. From a quarter of the grassland in the Netherlands, we can produce enough protein to meet the total national demand for soy,’ says Grassa director Rieks Smook.

Grass preacher wants to persuade farmers
Grass is plentiful. A third of the Netherlands consists of grassland, about a million hectares, according to CBS. Nor is that the problem. The challenge is to get farmers to give up their grass to Grassa, in exchange for fodder that allows them to meet future standards and a fee for the proteins extracted and sold. Moreover, by helping to reduce soya imports, the climate impact of the agricultural sector falls sharply. ‘Instead of a hedge preacher, I sometimes feel like a grass preacher,’ Smook says. ‘I feel like a missionary who has to convince farmers to deliver their grass to me, instead of cutting it myself, letting it dry and ensiling it for the winter. I have to convince them that I extract important elements to improve the grass as fodder for their cows. In effect, we are making sustainable grass. It seems simple, but with this you get their basic raw material for milk and meat. I am convinced we can win them over, but it will take a few years.’

From mobile trailer to pilot plant
Trials of a biorefinery on a mobile trailer at farmers in Friesland and Ireland and trials at Wageningen University (WUR) showed that the technology works. A feasibility study further showed that the refining process technology is theoretically, economically and technically feasible. Although inventor of the technique, Wageningen emeritus professor of plant production chains Johan Sanders, believed that refining should take place locally at the farmer’s premises, Smook moved away from that. ‘Grass consists of 85 per cent water and Sanders thinks you shouldn’t lug water around. But then you run into capacity problems and refining is not commercially viable,’ he says. That is why a pilot plant is now in Afferden in Limburg. While the trailer could process 1 tonne of grass per hour, the pilot plant can handle 3 tonnes per hour. Grassa wants to build a large commercial plant in 5 to 10 years that can process 32 tonnes of grass per hour, some 10,000 to 12,000 hectares per year. That will consist of four 8-tonne production lines. When fully operational, the agricultural sector will save 9.5 megatons of CO2 annually in the overall protein chain.

Ready for new investments
To make that step, Grassa needs new investors. To find them, the start-up received help and support from the Fastlane programme. Smook: ‘We turned out to be a difficult case for them because we want to make an entire sector more sustainable with thousands of self-employed, independent entrepreneurs, whom we need to convince to make a change in their basic raw material.’ So the question was: how does Grassa get through its so-called Death Valley, the phase where most start-ups founder because hardly any money is made yet investments are needed. As part of the programme, Invest-NL looked critically at the business model and the investments needed and set Grassa on the right course. ‘We are now ready for the next phase and can start approaching investors to scale up,’ Smook said.