Craft beer crackers made in Loulé win awards in Tavira

Nova Vida Cerveja's Dreche Crackers won second place in the first edition of the «Innovation Award – Mediterranean Diet», in 2024, an initiative created with the aim of promoting innovation in the agri-food sector, in the context of the Tavira Mediterranean Diet Fair .

We spoke to the winners to understand the meaning of this distinction for each of them and for their respective business areas, with the aim of inspiring future candidates and giving visibility to successful examples that value and preserve the principles of the Mediterranean Diet.

Nova Vida Cerveja is a family-run project based in Loulé, which designs, produces, bottles and distributes all of its beers. Driven by sustainability and innovation, Dreche Crackers are an example of how it is possible to combine environmental commitment and creativity in the agri-food sector, being the result of the reuse of cereal waste from the beer manufacturing process.

Although the project is still under development, as it is necessary to carry out a nutritional analysis of the crackers and obtain “an industrial kitchen” for their production, Nova Vida Cerveja guarantees that they are already thinking about “partnerships with local producers, to create varieties of crackers (herbs, cheeses)”.

Focused on the “reuse of products, local circuits and valorization of local products”, the company wants to bring something innovative and healthy to the market and they tell us that this product “goes very well with what we already produce, craft beer”.

Nova Vida Cerveja recognizes the importance of increased support for the development of the project, seeing it as an opportunity to boost its growth. Simultaneous management of the ongoing activity presents challenges, namely in accessing the right interlocutors and in defining the necessary steps for its implementation.

Organised in the context of the Tavira Mediterranean Diet Fair, the Mediterranean Diet Innovation Award is an initiative of the Algarve Regional Coordination and Development Commission, together with the municipality of Tavira as the representative community in Portugal of the Mediterranean Diet – UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, the IN-LOCO Association as the entity that coordinates with the producers represented at the Mediterranean Diet Fair and the Caixa de Crédito Agrícola Mútuo do Sotavento Algarvio as the entity that awards the three monetary prizes.

The award is public and aims to select, publicize and reward projects developed in the Algarve region that have an innovative character, with prizes being awarded to those that stand out in the agri-food area aligned with the principles of the Mediterranean Diet and whose producers/projects/companies are represented at the Mediterranean Diet Fair.