Steinecker’s biomass conversion concept wins German Sustainability Award

Germany | Steinecker GmbH, a subsidiary of Krones, has been honoured with the 2025 German Sustainability Award (GSA) in the “Products” category, which is being presented for the first time this year to recognise standout projects offering sustainable solutions. Steinecker submitted its biomass conversion concept Phoenix BMC for the transformation field Climate and won first place.

The principle behind Phoenix BMC: Where brewery residuals have commonly been used as animal feed, Steinecker has put the concept of resource recovery on a broader footing, revolutionising it to effectively turn organic waste from the brewing process into a source of valuable substances and thus leveraging far more potential even than if it were just used for energy generation in a biogas plant.

Steinecker developed Phoenix BMC as a three-module concept. In the first two modules, spent grains, malt dust and yeast are processed, first to extract a liquid protein solution known as protein hydrolysate and then to derive liquid mineral fertiliser. Because these products can be sold – the protein hydrolysate to the food industry and the mineral fertiliser to agricultural companies – the system pays for itself very quickly. But that’s not all. Separating both of these materials yields yet another benefit, which is where the third module comes into play. In it, all remaining solids are fed into a biogas plant and used to generate energy.

This stage is not new in itself. But combining it with the first two modules makes it a far more efficient way to generate biogas than was previously possible. In their original form, the proteins and ammonia compounds hinder the process. Phoenix BMC removes them, thus allowing biogas generation to proceed at a much faster pace.