Greencovery Raises €1M to Upycled Cocoa Waste Into Functional Ingredients

Dutch startup Greencovery has raised €1M in funding to scale its cocoa waste upcycling technology. It’s now targeting a follow-on financing round of up to €3M.

With cocoa prices maintaining their premium, one startup is looking to extract more from the crop to achieve better returns.

Greencovery, based in Wageningen, uses separation technology to turn food industry sidestreams into higher-value ingredients. It’s starting with cocoa, which it upcycles into fibres and extracts.

The food tech startup has secured €1M in funding to scale up its technology, with North Holland’s regional development agency, ROM InWest, joining existing backer Brightlands Venture Partners and a private investor.

It’s now eyeing a further €3M raise, commitments for which have already been secured from new and existing investors, which will fund full-scale commercial manufacturing and enable it to supply its ingredients at larger volumes.

Producing fibres and extracts from cocoa sidestreams

Founded in 2018 at the Wageningen University of Research by Carlos Cabrera, Greencovery has developed a chemical-physical platform that can analyse the valorisation potential of various food industry byproducts and transform them into specialty food ingredients.

It relies on a mild separation process that uses less water and energy than the industry standard, turning waste into proteins, amino acids, fibres, fats, and flavours with elevated taste, functionality and microbial stability. The technology unlocks the full potential of sidestreams, cuts environmental impact, and creates new revenue opportunities for businesses.

The company’s first products were a banana extract made from a vinegar sidestream, and a clean-label umami flavour from parmesan rinds. It’s currently working on additional taste and texture enhancers from the latter, as well as functional and nutritional ingredients using okara (the pulp left over from soy milk or tofu production).

”We have proven our separation technology across coffee, oil press cakes, and nuts,” noted Cabrera, who is Greencovery’s managing director. “But cocoa is where we are reaching commercial scale.”

It’s working on three functional ingredients derived from cocoa sidestreams: a fibre ingredient, a soluble fibre, and an extract. These products will give manufacturers a reliable alternative to navigate through global cocoa price swings, while helping meet demand for natural flavours and reduced-sugar products.

Grencovery scaling up with manufacturing partner

Greencovery noted that Zaandam, North Holland has served as a European food processing hub for four centuries and remains central to the global cocoa trade. “North Holland generates over 350,000 tonnes of food-grade sidestreams annually. Bringing ROM InWest into this round connects us directly to the region’s industrial network,” explains Cabrera.

The startup said it will add a circular component to Zaandam’s heritage by refining byproducts locally into functional ingredients rather than exporting them for low-value uses or disposal.

“Upcycling side streams into functional ingredients instead of incinerating or downcycling them directly supports a circular food system,” said Bas Kalshoven, investment manager at ROM InWest. “Deploying this technology with an industrial partner in North Holland is a prime example of regional collaboration.”

Marcel Zijp, senior investment manager at Brightlands Venture Partners, added: “We supported Greencovery through its early technology development. ROM InWest’s participation at this stage of industrial deployment comes at a key moment.”

The startup has already validated its initial commercial batches with key clients, and is now expanding operations with a strategic partner to reach a 1,000-tonne capacity.

Its technology is addressing a commodity struggling in the face of climate change. In 2024, cocoa stocks plunged to their lowest levels in a decade, and prices rose to all-time highs. Cacao is among the most wasted fruits in the world – around 70-80% of the fruit is thrown away during chocolate production, despite the discarded parts having high nutritional and functional value.

It’s why many startups are looking to other ingredients to mimic the flavour of chocolate in cocoa-free formulations, or culturing cocoa cells to grow the ingredient in fermentation tanks instead of on trees. Denmark’s Endless Food Co, meanwhile, uses cacao fruit shells and other beer and oat milk sidestreams to make a chocolate alternative.