Research enjoys top priority at VLB Berlin

Dr. Maja Schuster, VLB Research Coordinator

After two years as a corona-related online event, the VLB's research colloquium was held again in presence as part of VLB's Annual Conference on 11 October 2022. The participants were informed about the future direction of research as well as the results of current research projects of VLB. This event once again demonstrated both the breadth and relevance of VLB research, especially with regard to the challenges facing the brewing industry.

tation of research policy. The European Commission had also placed the focus of its funding activities around these topics. Schreiber named health, food security with a focus on freshwater research and the bio-economy, transport and climate protection, especially resource efficiency and raw materials, as extremely relevant for research at the VLB.

VLB Managing Director and Head of Research Coordination at VLB, Gerhard Andreas Schreiber, opened the research colloquium. In his presentation, he informed the participants about the importance of current societal challenges – climate change, globalisation, digitalisation and demographic change also influence the orien -

Promising topics

Since national funding programmes are oriented towards the requirements of EU directives, these societal challenges form the focal points of the programmes themselves and their evaluation criteria. Schreiber sees more competition for third-party funded research in the future, but this can be countered by higher demands on the degree of innovation and increased transfer of results to industry. The VLB's strategy is to address topics within the value chain of beer and beverage production in the funding programmes that address societal challenges. Schreiber counted logistics, resource optimisation and healthy food among the most promising topics. In the future, he said, the focus will be increasingly on longer, multi-stage projects that are realised as cooperative projects with overriding objectives. In addition to the funding programmes for applied research of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK), VLB plans to apply for funding from the German Research Foundation and the European Commission in the future. In the last item, Schreiber informed the participants about the effects of political events on funding policy. For example, he said, VLB had been affected by the long federal budget negotiations and the resulting lack of approval for new projects. For the coming year, however, Schreiber expects the situation in the area of third-party funding to return to normal. Despite the Ukraine war and the inflation, the funding programmes of the BMWK as the most important funding agency of the VLB are probably not at risk. Schreiber therefore called on all participants to take part in VLB research projects. Schreiber then turned the podium over to the speakers.

Florian Heukäufer, research assistant at the packaging testing centre of VLB, presented his results of the project Vegan Wet Labelling System (INNO-KOM 49MF190081). Since for many vegan consumers the label "vegan" includes the packaging, the aim was to find a vegan alternative to casein glues that can also be applied via a simple spray process. The trials focused on gluten, a reserve protein from cereal grains with viscoelastic properties, which has already been successfully researched as an adhesive in the wood industry. In the experiments conducted by Heukäufer and his colleagues, the gluten solution also proved to be a suitable and easily adaptable alternative for attaching labels to returnable bottles. Further research and development work must now show that the process can also be used outside the laboratory.

From the Research Institute for Beer and Beverage Production (FIBGP) Michel Werner presented the Digital Operations Consultant (INNO-KOM 49MF190064, Development of a software-based service for optimising resources in the beverage industry). As part of the project, Werner and his colleagues have lifted the VLB's enormous treasure trove of data from consultancy and research and categorised it with a focus on sustainability. Their findings on optimisation and savings potential were bundled in a digital tool. Werner guided the participants through the tool using the example of a brewery with an annual production of 500,000 hL. The digital business consultant is primarily intended to support the consultations of breweries by the VLB in order to achieve optimal results with the bundled experience of many years. In future, Werner and his colleagues would like to expand the tool in cooperation with the VLB members.

The project presented by Stefan Reimann from the VLB Research Institute for Biotechnology and Water (FIBW), Re-evaluation of the cleaning effect of recycled caustic soda (INNO-KOM 49MF190063), also dealt with resource conservation in brewery operations. Reimann and his colleagues investigated the cleaning effect of defined aged cleaning solutions based on caustic soda using standard soiling on test samples. Their results confirmed that increasing sodium carbonate and aluminium concentrations (carried in by metallised labels) significantly worsen the cleaning effect and label detachment time. However, the COD load of recycled caustic soda only seemed to negatively influence the label detachment time. In new projects, Reimann and his colleagues would like to further differentiate the COD load of recycled caustic soda crossinstitutionally in order to be able to work out more targeted statements on lye application times with a special focus on bottle cleaning.

The last lecture of the research colloquium was given by Laura Knoke from the VLB Research Institute for Raw Materials and Beverage Analysis (FIRGA). Knoke presented the results of a cooperation project with the Technical University of Munich on the Ageing Stability of Light Full-Bodied Beers (IGF 20151 N). The aim of the project was to identify the origin of ageing carbonyls. Knoke and colleagues established an LC-Q-ToF-MS method to identify and quantify aldehyde-cysteine adducts, which were suspected as a possible source of the ageing carbonyls. However, the experiments did not show that the aldehyde-cysteine adducts are the main source of the ageing carbonyls. Knoke and her colleagues are therefore planning further research projects to trace the origin of the ageing carbonyls.

The next VLB research colloquium is expected to take place at the VLB October Convention on 9/10 October 2023.