Supplant’s Second Product Upcycles Wheat Stalks Into Sustainable, Fiber-Rich Flour

The Supplant Company has launched Grain & Stalk Flour — a flour blend that uses more of the wheat plant by deriving matter from both the grain and the stalk.

According to Supplant, its new flour maintains the taste and texture of baked goods, pasta, and other flour-based products while offering fewer calories and more fiber than regular flour. It is also helping the company make strides toward a more sustainable food system by using the underutilized agricultural side-streams such as oat hulls, wheat straw, and corn cobs.

Upcycling food waste

Supplant was founded with a mission of upcycling food waste into staple ingredients that are more nutritious and sustainable than their conventional counterparts. The new flour, which is being used in pasta, maintains the taste and texture of conventional flour-based products while offering fewer calories and more fiber than regular flour — six times more fiber than conventional.

Supplant says that by utilizing both the grain and the stalk, the flour offers a viable alternative to regular refined wheat flour, which is stripped of most fiber.

The Grain & Stalk Flour is Supplant’s second product. Its first, Supplant Sugars from Fiber, launched in 2021. It’s made from corn cobs and other food waste using enzymes that turn the cobs into sweeteners.

The flour will make its debut on the menu of one of the world’s top restaurants, the three Michelin-starred Per Se, in collaboration with seven-Michelin star Chef Thomas Keller.

“I’m proud to play a part in Supplant’s innovation and impact as they bring Supplant Grain & Stalk Flour to their sustainable ingredient portfolio; the company is making extraordinary strides in delivering on integrity without compromising the environment or our health, and that is something that strongly resonates with me as a chef,” Keller said in a statement. He’s already partnered with The Supplant Company to create chocolate bars and shortbread cookies with Supplant Sugars from Fiber.

“By bringing under-utilized plant material back into the food system, Supplant Grain & Stalk Flour furthers our mission to create a food system that is fit for the future – one that is more sustainable, more food-secure and more nutritious for all,” said Supplant’s founder and CEO, Dr. Tom Simmons.

Sustainable bulk food supply

By upcycling agricultural side-streams that aren’t currently used in the food system, Supplant says it can help address the interconnected problems of nutrition, sustainability, and food security.

“Writ large across the farm, you could effectively double the output of an arable farm, which not only will produce more food but it has less environmental impact per ton of food product made,” Simmons told Food Dive.

According to Simmons, Supplant’s goal is to be a B2B supplier offering products that deliver improved nutrition, a high level of sustainability, and can help to increase food security.

“We’re doing the bulk components because that’s really what the health issues are caused by. That’s really what the environmental issues are caused by,” Simmons said. “And that’s the unique thing that this approach can really do. It can do scale bulk replacement of ingredients.”