Froth Technologies

Froth Technologies is on a mission to brew a lower-carbon future for Aotearoa. By making premium liquid yeast locally, the team has given Kiwi brewers a sustainable alternative to carbon-intensive imports flown in via refrigerated air freight. Since partnering with Ekos in 2022, they’ve taken a close look at where their emissions actually come from — and used that insight to drive real change: installing solar, switching from CO2 to nitrogen gas, and sharpening production efficiency to cut waste and maximise yield. Here, Froth Technologies shares what they've learned along the way, the wins that made the biggest difference, and their goals for a low-carbon future by 2030.

Froth Technologies co-founders Ryan Carville & Simon Cooke

1.      What motivated you to begin working with Ekos and what do you aim to achieve?

Sustainability had been a big motivator behind our initial concept - importing liquid yeast from the other side of the world via refrigerated air freight is a carbon intensive practice, and we wanted to give Kiwi brewers a lower carbon option for sourcing premium liquid yeast. We took part in the WCC Zero Carbon Challenge back in 2019, and developed a set of goals around sustainability for our business. Being Carbon Neutral was high up on that list, so as soon as we could we jumped into measuring our carbon footprint. 

2.  What have you learnt from working with Ekos on carbon management? Have you seen any benefits? Were there any challenges and how did you overcome them?

It has been very interesting to see what areas of our business contribute most significantly to our overall footprint. I've always liked the saying "you can't expect what you don't inspect," and I feel like that really applies here. We could have made some assumptions early on about where our emissions were coming from but they would have been misdirected, so I guess the real benefit there is in being able to identify and then working to mitigate key emission areas. To be honest, there weren't too many challenges specifically pertaining to our carbon measurement, other than getting used to the data collection, but that has become a lot more streamlined as measurement years continue. 

3. What sustainability initiatives are you currently engaged in? and how will these impact your business for a sustainable future?

We installed a solar array on the roof of our production facility a couple of years back now, and we elected early on to go for a fully electrical production plant (rather than natural gas fired), so those decisions have, and continue to, work hard in reducing our carbon footprint. We have also been continually refining our production efficiencies and recently we have been monitoring our product SKU's and wastage rates to improve efficiency in terms of maximising yields, minimising wastage, and only running our energy intensive production plant to produce product that will be sold. 

4. What changes have made the biggest impact?

A couple of years back we switched our industrial process gas from CO2 to Nitrogen. As Nitrogen doesn't contribute to GHG emissions and is extracted from the air around us, unlike CO2 which is largely produced as a by-product of industrial processes, this transition almost completely removed our emissions associated with industrial gasses. Other than that, we have had some big wins with our Purchased Electricity (solar, and process efficiency as noted above), which was down -48.49% on the year prior. 

5. For you, what might a low carbon business look like?

There is no one specific image of a low carbon business in my head - they can range from a small, two-person operation like us, right up to large multinational corporates. I suppose the key unifying factor is that desire or drive to understand, measure, and mitigate business areas or activities that are contributing a significant amount of carbon or environmental impact - a drive that is ideally underpinned by a genuine desire to operate ethically and sustainably. 

6.‍ ‍What areas have you looked at to make your GHG emissions report more complete? Have you learnt about bettering your data collection?

This year we determined that some of our emissions data, specifically the categorisation of our freight emissions, had been put in the wrong category - so I guess just continually working to ensure that the high quality data we gather and submit is accounted for in the correct scope/classification, so that we have a better gauge on where those emissions are coming from. We're also continuing to identify even small contributors to our profile like suppliers we might engage with once a year, or less, and just generally trying to capture as much as we can. 

7. What will your company's sustainability look like by 2030?

We have some long term goals to transition even further away from fossil fuels (E.V's for commuting), minimisation of waste, and hopefully scaling up production to service a larger part of the market - improving production efficiencies. We would like to continue to invest in smart, and carbon-reducing and resilience/sustainability promoting technologies like batteries, more renewal energy collection, and nitrogen generation in house. 

8.‍ ‍How do you communicate your actions and certification?

We communicate our certification on our product packaging, on our website and social media, and in communications to existing and potential customers as another added benefit in supporting an NZ producer. 

9. What are the links between your sustainability and social goals?

For us, sustainability and social impact are two sides of the same coin. Froth was founded not just to make better yeast, but to do business in a way that supports our local brewing community, respects the planet, and contributes to a more resilient food system in Aotearoa. Supporting local means reducing emissions from international freight, but it also means building stronger relationships with brewers, collaborating more closely, and growing a more connected, self-reliant industry. 

By investing in sustainability—from carbon measurement to solar power, nitrogen use, and efficient production—we’re not only reducing our environmental impact, we’re also demonstrating that small Kiwi businesses can lead by example. That has real social value, too. It helps normalise ethical, low-carbon operations, creates opportunities for local partnerships, and shows that business success doesn’t have to come at the planet’s expense. 

In the long run, we see sustainability as a vehicle for positive change—both in how we operate and in how we support others around us to grow more responsibly, too.