Company: Lyras
Founder: Rasmus Mortensen
Website: https://lyras.com
About Lyras
Founded in 2017, Lyras is a Danish industrial machine manufacturing company based in Aalborg, Denmark. Rasmus Mortensen established the company after developing the idea of treating liquids with UV light instead of heat when he was still in university. Ignited by the mission to prove that pasteurisation can be done more sustainably, Rasmus set out to turn his invention into a profession.
For the past 150 years, pasteurisation has saved millions of lives by inactivating the bacteria within easily corruptible foods, such as dairy products, thereby preserving them for longer periods. The process works to preserve liquids by heating them up and cooling them down in rapid succession. But though at the time revolutionary, heat pasteurisation is not without drawbacks.
Lyras’ modern alternative to pasteurisation involves the use of UV light – something which had not been used previously as it was impossible to shine light through opaque liquids. The Lyras team has developed a non-thermal, UV-based replacement for the liquid processing industry called ‘raslysation’. Utilising the natural anti-bacterial properties of UV, which is already widely used for disinfecting drinking and processing water, Lyras applies this methodology to opaque liquids such as milk, brines, juices, fermentation broths and even blood plasmas.
Today, almost all liquid food products are pasteurised, and therefore an inevitable part of the consumer’s everyday life. Lyras’ method is far less energy-intensive than traditional pasteurization and filtration and therefore allows for a more sustainable production process. Because the process is cold, there is no fouling – meaning less frequent and less intensive cleaning procedures are required, resulting in a more effective production line with higher uptime. Additionally, the gentler treatment extends the shelf life of various products and gives immense potential for reducing food waste and contamination risks.
By switching from conventional thermal pasteurisation to the less resource-intensive raslysation technology, customers have been able to reduce their energy and water consumption by 60-90% and 60-80% respectively in comparison to conventional pasteurisation methods.
By 2030, Lyras aims to have saved the food industry 1.000.000 metric tons of CO2, equivalent to 180,000 Europeans’ annual use. Lyras has representatives in Spain, Italy, the UK, the Netherlands, Turkey, New Zealand, and Australia, and has sales and services worldwide. Most recently, Lyras has partnered with Sycamore Process Engineering, the UK-based manufacturing and engineering company, to provide sustainable processing solutions across the UK’s dairy and drinks industry.
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