Biova Flour (Ri-Flour): Turning Industrial Bread Waste into High-Value Circular Ingredients

Company and project background

Can you give us a brief overview of your business and the specific project you implemented?

Biova Project is a startup dedicated to food upcycling, transforming surplus food into high-value products.
The “Ri-Flour” project funded by Up2Circ validated the technical, economic, and operational feasibility of producing food-grade flour derived entirely from industrial bread crusts and off-cuts.
Biova’s mission since the foundation is to reduce food waste through the creation, development, marketing, and distribution of food products and beverages that follow the philosophy of the circular economy.
Our core products include upcycled beer created from unsold bread, broken pasta or broken rice and snacks from or spent grain. We recently launched a kombucha made using lemon pit. The Ri-Flour project began as a study to transition from beverage-based upcycling to B2B food ingredients. The project concluded its feasibility phase in January 2026.
It aligns with the mission of reducing food waste and closing the loop within food manufacturing production lines.

What motivated you to make your business more circular?

Biova’s core mission has always been to reduce food waste, and since our foundation, we have actively sourced surplus food and explored innovative ways to upcycle it. Our journey began with unsold bread collected from local bakeries, an opportunity we discovered while volunteering for a non-profit organization. Combining this discovery with the brewing knowledge of making beer from ingredients other than barley malt was the spark that led us to start the company.
Along the way, we encountered various other types of food waste, such as broken pasta and broken rice, which we successfully turned into artisanal beers. We also optimized our production lines by using spent barley grain to create healthy snacks, continuously developing new upcycled ingredients.
The drive to study and develop Ri-Flour was accelerated by a combination of powerful external and internal factors. Externally, we experienced strong industrial interest and concrete demand from major market players, who were eager to explore strategic supply chain integration to meet their ESG goals. Internally, this aligned perfectly with our need to diversify our business model, create entirely new B2B revenue streams, and drastically improve resource efficiency across the food manufacturing sector. By combining corporate’s massive volume of stable, high-quality sandwich bread crusts with our upcycling expertise, we saw a clear commercial and environmental opportunity to turn a traditional waste management cost into a high-value, functional ingredient.

Implementation process

What were the main objectives of your feasibility study?

To validate drying and milling processes to achieve target moisture and granulometry for food applications.
To perform a detailed financial analysis, including CAPEX, OPEX, and ROI.
To assess the feasibility of on-site or near-site processing to minimize logistics costs.

Did the objectives include reducing environmental impact? What indicators have been set?

Yes, the project aimed for a measurable reduction in CO2 emissions and raw material waste.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):

• CO2 reduction of 30-50% compared to conventional flour.
• Avoidance of 1.300 mc of water footprint and 2.000 mq of soil use per ton of flour.
• Avoidance of approximately 18,000 tons of food waste per year.

What activities did you carry out during your project?

Technical trials for drying and milling, prototyping of snacks and flour, cost modeling, and logistics assessments.
Strategic dialogue with industry partners for industrial scalability.

What feedback did you receive from stakeholders (customers, suppliers etc.)?

The collaboration with Corporate demonstrated concrete demand and applicability within large-scale production.
Interest emerged from other major Italian food manufacturing players, confirming market relevance.

Impact & Outcomes

What were the main results and outcomes of the project for your company?

The study confirmed that Ri-Flour is technically compatible with industrial standards.
Financial viability was proven with an all-in cost (€300/t) significantly lower than the virgin flour midpoint (€580/t).

Did you detect a positive impact of circular transition for your company and for the environment?

Company: Validated a profitable model that reduces raw material procurement and waste disposal costs.
Environment: Significant reduction in resource dependency (virgin wheat) and greenhouse gas emissions.

Have you already implemented any changes?

Biova plans to advance toward pilot-scale industrial implementation based on these results. The project identified the potential for an industrial plant requiring 400-600 mq of space. We are currently working on financing the industrial plant.

Lessons learned

What key lessons did you learn regarding circular innovation?

We learned that while technical feasibility is high, long-term system stability needs more study.
A critical insight was that the progressive accumulation of recycled material within a closed loop might introduce quality constraints over time.

What would you advise others to prioritise when starting out?

• Prioritize identifying stable, high-standard surplus streams to ensure process consistency.
• Focus on economic sustainability; the circular model must be cheaper than the traditional market to be attractive.

Did you encounter any challenges?

Technical: Achieving a target moisture level of 8-10% and consistent micronization.
Financial: The high initial investment (CAPEX estimated at €1.130.000) for machinery like vacuum dryers and micronizers.

If you could do your project again, what would you do differently?

If we could start Biova all over again, we would make different choices regarding governance and financing, particularly by leveraging equity crowdfunding earlier in our journey. When it comes to our specific projects and products, however, we strongly believe that every mistake we made ultimately took us to the next level. Truly understanding the market is an ongoing process, and it is something you simply have to experience firsthand through trial and error.

Future plans & recommendations

What are your next steps towards circular transition?

To develop a follow-up study addressing the long-term circularity limits and material balance and to implement a full-scale industrial plant capable of processing 50 tons of surplus bread daily.

How can policymakers or financial institutions better support businesses?

• By providing grants or financial support for high CAPEX equipment required for upcycling.
• Support for training and tax incentives would help bridge the gap in adopting circular practices.

Do you have any additional comments or reflections about your participation in the Up2Circ project?

The Up2Circ project has been incredibly helpful in shifting our focus toward large-scale industrial upcycling and validating our business case. However, given the massive scale and capital requirements of this kind of food-waste transition, we would definitely benefit from further project calls and deeper financial investments to expand our research. Additional funding would allow us to test other potential sources of food waste and industrial by-products, ensuring we can systematically map, stabilize, and reintegrate multiple raw material streams back into the circular economy.