The challenge
A nut industry association approached BGP to turn a persistent waste problem into a commercial opportunity. The problem statement: majority of nut biomass is lost or underused across the value chain – discarded, sold into low-value outlets, or discounted – even as growers face margin pressure and rising expectations around sustainability and resource efficiency. Innovation efforts had been fragmented across individual processors, with no shared view of what could scale, and several past attempts had never translated into proven buyer demand or viable economics.
The association asked BGP to identify viable, high-value applications for nut byproducts by assessing product properties, market demand, pricing potential, and scalability, and to define an implementation roadmap that would prioritize opportunities, estimate revenue potential and ROI, and guide coordinated industry action.
approach
Delivered in three phases over eight weeks, drawing on 50+ expert and prospective-buyer interviews:
Mapped the four main byproduct streams – shell, hull, kernel, and tree prunings – evaluated every plausible use, and benchmarked 50+ analog crop byproducts (proven successes and instructive failures) to narrow the long list to eight priority transformation pathways.
Tested each pathway for commercial attractiveness across 12 end markets – market size and growth, competing products and pricing, and buyer requirements and scalability – narrowing to the three strongest opportunities for near-term commercialization.
Defined staged implementation roadmaps for the top three: the proof points and de-risking steps required, the partners and capabilities needed, and grower value-capture models to ensure the upside flows back to growers.
From the engagement
Every plausible use of the four nut byproduct streams was evaluated and scored by commercial priority, narrowing to the three strongest opportunities for near-term commercialization.
The impact
BGP gave the association its first consolidated, evidence-based view of where value sits across the entire byproduct landscape, replacing fragmented experimentation with a single prioritized strategy the whole industry can rally behind. The engagement delivered:
Eight transformation pathways identified across the four major byproduct streams, each validated against a real-world analog.
Three opportunities prioritized for near-term commercialization – balancing market attractiveness, feasibility, and demand.
Staged next steps in short-to-mid term, de-risking needs, and grower value-capture models to move from concept to commercialization.
The result reframes an industry-wide disposal cost as a portfolio of revenue streams – and leaves the association with a repeatable method to assess future byproduct opportunities.
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Our consulting team based out of Europe and 2500+ expert team located in 60+ countries cover the full AgriFood Tech value chain globally.
