Dan Kurzrock is the Co-Founder and Chief Grain Officer of ReGrained, a mission-driven ingredient platform that leverages technology and culinary science to transform beer waste into food.
Dan spent his free time in college brewing his own beer. After he was finished with each batch, he was blown away with the amount of grain was left over. For every 6-pack he brewed, he had almost a pound of grain that he would throw in the trash, a by-product of the brewing process. Overtime, he grew uneasy with how much waste the process was creating and wondered if there was a better way to utilize the grain. He started taking the leftover grain and used it to bake bread. He would then sell the bread and use the proceeds to fund his beer brewing hobby. Quite the operation. His first idea, naturally, was to start a brewery that was also a bakery, so he could do both at scale. But as he started talking to all the new microbreweries that were popping up in 2009 and 2010, he realized this was a much bigger opportunity than he thought. And that’s how ReGrained was born.
Dan is an entrepreneurial systems thinker and loves tackling seemingly intractable problems through creative entrepreneurship and cross-sectoral collaboration. Through ReGrained, he has become a thought-leader about food waste business models, "edible upcycling" and the circular economy for food.