A Taste of Tomorrow: Upcycled Innovations in the Week of the Circular Economy
Last week Foodvalley hosted an event during the Week of the Circular Economy. We highlighted how circularity in food is moving from ambition to implementation. Food plays a pivotal role in the circular economy, but the dominant focus of food waste policies and corporate strategies remains on prevention. While crucial, this emphasis often underestimates the significant environmental and resource efficiency gains that can be achieved by valorising inevitable side streams — including brewers’ spent grains, press cakes, pulp, cutting losses and cereal husks — that are produced at scale across the food system.
Week of the Circular Economy
As part of the Foodvalley Innovation Insights programme, the Circular Drinks & Bites took place as a special edition in which The Upcycling Community acted as a Hub within the Week of the Circular Economy, making these upcycling solutions in food and food ingredients tangible.
Visitors were invited to experience a selection of market ready food products developed with upcycled ingredients, demonstrating that circular solutions in food are no longer confined to pilots or niche experiments. Instead, they are already being applied for real and marketed products.
Set within the Week of the Circular Economy, this moment sent a clear signal: circularity in food is relevant, feasible and already happening. More importantly, it shows that by working together and sharing concrete insights on side streams, ingredients and products, partners can accelerate the transition towards a more circular, resilient and future proof food system.
This year, Stockable, Royal Smilde, Biobite and Proeon presented their latest circular creations, offering not just a taste of what is possible today, but a shared perspective on how circular food innovation can scale tomorrow.
Royal Smilde, presented a sausage roll in which 38% of the meat is replaced with oyster mushrooms and seaweed. In the final product, this results in around 4% seaweed and 4% oyster mushroom, with a 10/10% ratio within the filling itself. A tasty hybrid concept showing how indulgent products can lower their footprint without compromising on flavor.
Biobite showcased two products built entirely around upcycled streams:
Seitan bites with an aquafaba-based sauce, using surplus beans and aquafaba (the cooking liquid of pulses, usually considered waste).
A cauliflower burger with oyster mushrooms, incorporating cauliflower stems and leaves as well as mushroom stems; all typically discarded. Together, they demonstrate how multiple side streams can be combined into appealing, fully upcycled foods.
Proeon Proeon presented two products made from upcycled peanut protein isolate, recovered from residual streams of the peanut‑oil industry:
A protein bar containing 20–30% peanut protein isolate (80% protein content).
A drink premix (shake) made with 85–90% peanut protein isolate.
Both illustrate Proeon’s mission to create affordable, clean‑tasting and digestible plant proteins from upcycled sources.
Stockable/Not Wasted Taste It brought two circular products:
NO ch*colate, a cocoa‑free chocolate alternative made with fava bean hulls as a cocoa substitute, containing 15% upcycled ingredients.
Currant buns made using a 100% circular oliebollen (Dutch doughnut) mix as the base, resulting in a final product that is 52% circular.
Both products show how leftover streams can be transformed into surprising and delicious consumer items.
All partners shared concrete insights into their products, the side streams they valorise, and the upcycling propositions behind them, providing a clear starting point for further collaboration and scaling.
A key strength of this showcase lies in the way it reflects the working principles of Foodvalley’s Upcycling Community and the UPcycled4Food initiative. Within the Upcycling Community, partners actively share practical insights into:
– which side streams they valorise,
– which upcycled ingredient solutions they apply, and
– which end products they develop or can reformulate using these ingredients.
By exchanging this information at ingredient and product level, partners make clear how circularity can be integrated into existing product portfolios as well as into new product development.
This openness helps identify realistic reformulation pathways, highlights where upcycled ingredients add value, and shows how circular approaches can be embedded without compromising functionality or consumer acceptance. At the same time, it reveals where further collaboration across the value chain is needed and where challenges still need to be addressed to enable a stronger pull from downstream actors such as retail and foodservice.
The Circular Drinks & Bites brought these insights together in one shared moment. Each product on display represented collaboration across the value chain — between processors, ingredient suppliers, food manufacturers and downstream partners — and illustrated how circular food solutions can be developed, scaled and brought to market through cooperation.
In doing so, the showcase underlines that collaboration is not one dimensional: it can take many forms, from joint product development and reformulation to knowledge sharing, procurement strategies and go to market alignment.
Earlier that afternoon, the breakout session brought partners from across the value chain together to discuss what it truly takes to scale upcycling beyond individual products. Curious to learn more about the insights shared there? Read the full recap here.
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