India's Distilleries Urged to Diversify Beyond Ethanol
India's distillery sector needs to move beyond its traditional focus on ethanol production and adopt a broader biorefinery approach to unlock value from various process streams, industry experts said at the India Bioenergy & Tech Expo (IBET) 2026.
The session 'Maximizing Value from Distilleries' brought together executives and technology specialists who argued that the future of distilling will increasingly depend on extracting multiple products from a single feedstock rather than treating ethanol as the end product.
Pradeep Dhokare, Managing Director of Universal Forces, pointed to carbon dioxide (CO2) as a significant output from distillery operations that is still frequently treated as a waste stream.
Kiran Dangwal highlighted the growing opportunity in grain-based distilleries, particularly around corn oil, DDGS, and high-protein DDGS.