Time well spent
Sunkyung Choi and Patrick Nagle, the co-founders of Well Spent Grain
Tell us about your business
Well Spent Grain Ltd and our brand “Born Again Bites” is a food upcycling start-up based in Dublin, Ireland. Our company name is derived from our mission: To collect brewer’s spent grain from local breweries and “spend it well” by creating high quality and value-added food products.
What was the motivation to start your own business?
Our story begins with our love of food and nature. We are regular hikers and we appreciate the great outdoors. Being in nature inspired us to educate ourselves regarding climate change which led us to the food chain and its waste issues. Following research, we discovered brewer’s spent grain. Brewer’s spent grain is the largest by-product of beer brewing process. It is extremely nutritious yet most of it ends up as animal feed or in landfill. It is underutilized.
Brewers’ spent grain is the largest by-product of beer brewing process
Where are you based?
Knocklyon, Dublin.
How many employees do you have?
Two of us, both founders
Who is your target market?
We provide snacks for consumers aged between 25-45 years who are seeking honest, delicious, and sustainable snacks.
How do you market your product?
Instagram, weekend markets, in-store tastings, and we will launch our new e-commerce website in the coming months.
Tell us why your product is unique?
Our snacks promote the circular food economy by using brewers spent grain as a key ingredient. Our Born Again Bites are high in fibre, have 4.6g of protein per pouch, no added nasties and are accidently vegan. The brewers’spent grain is the second largest ingredient in our treats.
Our unique selling points include using upcycled ingredients into snacks, they are high in fibre, they are 100% plant based protein and vegan friendly. They use recycable packaging and are hand-made in Ireland promoting local community and promoting the circular food economy.
These snacks promote the circular food economy by using brewers’ spent grain as a key ingredient
What is a typical day in your life like?
A typical day in our lives would be as follows: Up at 7am to get some exercise. Around 8am we check on the grain processing, which is an overnight process. We always have some brewers spent grain flour on hand ready for production and we usually spend about four hours making fresh product in the morning, and packing the product we made the previous day.
At lunch time/early afternoon we like to get out for a walk. Luckly we are located right at the foot of the Dublin mountains, so we get a nice two hour break to refresh the head, bringing a couple of pouches of Born again Bites with us for energy.
In the afternoon we try to get a tasing in at a local SuperValu.
If there is no paperwork to do, we try and rest in the evening and get some quality time in either by watching a movie together or reading on the couch before hitting the hay.
What is the most stressful thing about starting a new business?
Eh, everything ha ha…. We had some great guidance through the SuperValu Food Academy, and we have amazing supports with our Local Enterprise Office (LEO South Dublin). These were invaluable in teaching us what we need to do as well as supporting us. We can’t thank LEO enough for the mentorship, guidance and supports they have given us.
“That first delivery into SuperValu was a real moment. Actually seeing our pouches up on the shelf in a real life supermarket was incredible”
What has been the best moment since starting the business?
We had a great year in 2023. We won the Lion’s Den competition by Bradley Design, we took the silver medal in the Food & Drink category at the National Startup Awards, and we were finalists in the Amazon Innovation Awards. But honestly, that first delivery into SuperValu was a real moment. Actually seeing our pouches up on the shelf in a real life supermarket was incredible.
What is the five year plan for the business?
We want to expand our production facilities as well as enter into other markets such as UK, Germany, and the rest of Europe over the coming years. We aim to become a leading food upcycling company across Europe and the world.
