JRINK and Erik Bruner-Yang Team Up to Turn Pulp into Vinegar and Seasoning

JRINK Juicery produces a lot of pulp in the process of juicing. Pulp from 23 different ingredients, in fact. "We have carrot pulp, we have cucumber pulp, we have beet pulp, you name it," JRINK co-founder Shizu Okusa told Eater. The pulp is still perfectly edible, but just not used for juicing.

Meanwhile, ramen restaurant Toki Underground uses a lot of kale, but just the leaves, not the stems. So when Okusa met Toki Underground's Erik Bruner-Yang, they started talking about a formal partnership that would help both businesses create less waste.

Here's how it worked out: Toki Underground hands over its kale stems to JRINK to add to their juices. And JRINK let Bruner-Yang try out a number of different recipes incorporating the pulp left over from juicing. The result is a Japanese seasoning called furikake made from JRINK's kale and ginger pulp and a tumeric vinegar sold in a recycled JRINK bottle, both of which are available at Honeycomb, Bruner-Yang’s shop in Union Market. The furikake is a savory, salty add-on for foods like rice, soup and avocado toast. And the vinegar is similar to an apple cider vinegar, where you add a shot to water as a detox method. Or it can be used in marinades, as sushi rice vinegar, for salad dressings, for making gastriques or shrubs, and more.

"It’s the first of a longer discussion of a collection of items that we could have, maybe a Toki/JRINK/Honeycomb product line. We think it’s really cool. Our goal is to go wasteless," Okusa said. "We’re actively thinking out different solutions and this is just one of them."

RINK customers who want to try out the Honeycomb/JRINK collab can bring in a JRINK bottle to Honeycomb and get 50 cents off your first purchase.