Creating Gut-Friendly Snacks from Rescued Fruit with Fermenti
- Growing Kent & Medway
- Jan 7
- 4 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
Fermenti, a start-up founded in Kent, utilised our support ecosystem to transform fresh produce by-products into shelf-stable, gut-friendly snacks. By collaborating with Nim’s Naturally through one of our medium-sized grant programmes, they successfully developed a low-carbon manufacturing process for fermented treats that retains essential live cultures.
At A Glance: Project Quick Facts
Project Lead: Fermenti (Marie-Laure Prevost).
Collaborators: Nim’s Naturally (formerly Nim’s Fruit), University of Greenwich (Medway Food Innovation Centre)
Total Funding: £49,576 (Grant Awarded: £24,788 / Co-investment: £24,788).
Key Findings: Air-drying fermented fruit retains millions of live bacterial cultures (CFUs); confirmed air-drying is a viable, low-carbon alternative to freeze-drying.
Food System Areas:
The Challenge: Addressing the Microbiome Gap
Western diets often lack the microbial diversity necessary for a thriving internal ecosystem, a gap that Marie-Laure Prevost, a registered dietitian and public health nutritionist, was determined to close. While fermented foods are excellent for boosting microbiome diversity, traditional options like kimchi or kefir face consumer barriers. As Marie noted, "Most of the fermented food was wet, was acidic, rather salty," prompting her to look for a solution that was "something practical, something dry, something you could put in your pocket".
However, scaling up this vision presented significant technical and sustainability hurdles. Marie needed to move beyond her kitchen lab to a commercial process that was more energy-efficient than standard freeze-drying, without generating significant food waste. She needed a partner with industrial capabilities who shared her zero-waste ethos, as scaling up her kitchen experiments was not a viable path to market.
The Innovative Idea: A Circular Approach to Snacking
The solution was to commercialise a "dry" fermented snack produced entirely from rescued fruits, vegetables, and food manufacturing by-products. By using waste streams, such as fruit skins and "wonky" produce, the project aimed to create a high-value functional food product that contributed to a circular bioeconomy.
To achieve this, Fermenti collaborated with Nim’s Naturally, a Sittingbourne-based manufacturer already famous for their air-dried fruit crisps and commitment to zero waste. Together, they proposed a radical processing method: combining lacto-fermentation with Nimisha’s air-drying technology. This approach was designed to retain the nutritional value and live cultures of the ingredients while significantly lowering the carbon footprint compared to freeze-drying.
The Approach: Collaborative R&D and Air Drying Trials
The project centred on a vital collaboration between Fermenti and Nim’s Naturally to test the viability of air-drying fermented products. The methodology involved fermenting various by-products – including apple, tomato, and pineapple skins – before testing their viability in Nimisha’s industrial air-dryers.
The R&D process required careful calibration. Marie noted that initially, "due to the fruits’ high sugar content, yeast fermentation often took [over]" producing alcohol rather than the desired lacto-fermentation. The team "managed after lots of trial and error" to stabilise the process. Over a seven-month period, they conducted rigorous testing to balance texture, taste, and bacterial survival, comparing air-drying against dehydration and freeze-drying.
The Result: Millions of Live Cultures in a Shelf-Stackable Snack
The collaboration showed that air-drying is a viable, sustainable alternative to freeze-drying for fermented products. The lab results confirmed that while freeze-drying retains billions of cultures, the low-energy air-drying process still successfully retained millions of Colony Forming Units (CFUs), ensuring the product remained effective for gut health.
Commercially, the project delivered two market-ready prototypes: fermented fruit leathers and savoury crackers. Consumer testing with a focus group of children revealed a strong preference for the fermented fruit leathers, validating the potential to replace high-sugar alternatives. Additionally, the project successfully identified a metallised film packaging solution that is recyclable at supermarkets, reducing carbon emissions by roughly 30%.
See it Differently: Fermenting a Sustainable Food Ecosystem
Looking Forward: Scaling up to High Street Retail
With the manufacturing process successfully validated, Fermenti has proven that shelf-stable snacks can be gut-friendly, tasty, and sustainable. Marie is continuing her product development, shelf-life testing, and is conducting further market-fit testing.
The successful partnership with Nim’s Naturally has opened the door for continued collaboration, with plans to co-develop further fermented dried products. This growth trajectory is set to increase Fermenti’s turnover significantly, proving that sustainable, gut-friendly innovation can be both profitable and scalable.
Our Support: Building a Business Ecosystem
This project was supported by one of our medium-sized grant programmes, which facilitated the critical partnership with Nim’s Naturally. Fermenti’s journey exemplifies the full value of the Growing Kent & Medway ecosystem; Marie previously entered our network through the Food Accelerator and met her collaborator Nimisha Raja through our Mentoring Programme.
Reflecting on the importance of this holistic support, Marie said, "When you start out, you need to build your ecosystem. Being part of Growing Kent and Medway is very helpful because of the network.". She added that the value goes beyond funding: "It's more than just if you receive a grant, you just have the cash, but I think the network is very important, especially if you come from another field".
