Agave bagasse: a Valuable Waste to Harness in Our Production Processes
Some key points:
- Bagasse can be used as raw material and biofuel.
- Mexico produced a total of 915.4 tons of Agave bagasse in 2023.
- Grupo Solave generates solutions from bagasse as part of its Sustainability Plan.
Since its discovery, agave has been a symbol of abundance. Its cultural and economic importance is significant, even since pre-Hispanic times: For centuries, it has been used as a generous source of food, drink, medicine, fuel, clothing, fertilizer, and as an effective raw materials for home construction.
To this day, agave continues to surprise us with its generosity, now as a source of biofertilizers, bioplastics and biofuel. It is also of note that the raw material for these three solutions does not come from Agave’s pineapple or stalks, but from its bagasse, a byproduct of the tequila and agave syrup production process.
Where does bagasse come from?
Bagasse is an organic waste that is mainly composed of plant fibers. There are several types of bagasse: grape, beer or sugar cane, to name a few. In the case of Agave, bagasse consists of the plant fiber left after crushing the agave pineapple to extract the must (a combination of agave juice and water that will eventually become tequila or agave syrup).
Why use bagasse?
According to data from the Tequila Regulatory Council, in 2023, 2,288.5 tons of agave were processed to manufacture Tequila (at least 51% of its sugars come from Blue Agave) and 100% Tequila (composed entirely of Blue Agave sugars). If we take into account that agave bagasse represents approximately 40% of the total weight of the pineapple (wet weight), we can calculate that Mexico produced a total of 915.4 tons of agave bagasse during last year.
This illustrates the great potential that Grupo Solave can harness: in addition to minimizing the environmental impact, it opens up the opportunity to lower costs and create new solutions that allow tequila companies to optimize their production processes. All from using a raw material that was already available from the beginning.
How does Grupo Solave take advantage of the benefits of Agave bagasse?
As part of our Sustainability Program, which is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, we work to develop different solutions that reduce our carbon footprint and allow us to optimize our resources. In the case of agave bagasse, we have implemented three applications for the benefit of our business units and our community:
- Adoption of biopallets: Thanks to our synergy with Biopall, we have adopted the use of environmentally friendly pallets, also called biopallets. Biopallets are manufactured using 70% agave bagasse. The remaining 30% is made up of wood from sustainable forests, certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Being a renewable and biodegradable material, bagasse constitutes a great alternative to wood. For every thousand biopallets produced, up to 80 tons of agave bagasse are recycled, and around 40 trees are conserved.
- Manufacturing of Agave fiber briquettes: We co-process agave bagasse to make briquettes: solid and compact blocks of biofuel that are converted into steam to power our production processes, while minimizing our carbon footprint by consuming less fossil fuels.
By giving new life to what was once waste, we open the door to new opportunities: in addition to benefiting tequila companies, innovation around agave bagasse contributes to reactivating the economy, generating more jobs, which in turn contribute to improving the quality of life of all those involved in the tequila production chain.
Surely, the benefits of Agave will continue to surprise us in the future. Agave is a unique raw material due to its high water consumption efficiency and its ability to survive long periods of time without a drop of it. This translates into greater energy performance, as well as something crucial for the future: greater resistance to climate change.
Without a doubt, agave is one of Mexico’s most valuable treasures. At Grupo Solave, we believe that the solutions we develop, based on agave bagasse, are just the beginning of what we can create and innovate for the future. If, as an industry, we are willing to fully harness the benefits of Blue Agave, this sacred plant will continue to generously provide for us for countless generations to come.
Learn more:
Our commitment to the United Nations 2030 Agenda:
https://gruposolave.com/es/we-embrace-the-uns-2030-sustainable-development-agenda/
Learn more about our Biopallets:
https://gruposolave.com/es/biopallets-committed-to-more-sustainable-logistics/
Discover our distillery of the contemporary Mexico, Casa Natima:
