First Upcycling Community Event

Plenary session with a diverse international group

For the plenary part we also welcomed about 10 online participants, which made it a diverse international group. We were very pleased to have four new partners taking part in the event: Greencovery, NOPalm Ingredients, Meatco and Circular Food Solutions. During the plenary part we introduced three of our technology providers in the Upcycling community:

• Uticon
• SPG Innovation Ltd
• Green Cell Technologies

They presented their company and their expertise and the technologies they developed to valorize sidestreams of food industry towards circular ingredients. We discussed with the community partners about the role of technology providers and the challenges and opportunities they have to create breakthrough innovations.

Inspiring discussion with Madhura Rao

Our guest speaker Madhura Rao – PhD researcher at the Universiteit Maastricht shared insights on her research about barriers and enablers for valorisation of foodlosses and processing byproducts. It brought up an inspiring discussions between our partners about:

• The potential opportunities for new legislation that stimulates processing of food waste
• The potential value of private standards for circular products
• The possibilities to better match supply and demand of upcycled ingredients for food.

All topics that were touched upon during the event strongly link to the programme that Foodvalley NL is developing for the Upcycling Community partners in 2023. Interested to get introduced to the Upcycling Community? Please contact: Jolijn Zwart- van Kessel or Caroline Duivenvoorden.

Create impact with the Upcycling Community of Foodvalley NL

There are already many great technologies in place that result in a higher valorisation of agrifood side streams. However, the great challenge and opportunity is to transform current systems into new circular supply chains where circular raw materials find their optimal destinations towards feed or food. For this reason, Foodvalley NL started the Upcycling Community in May 2022. The Upcycling Community is an international committed group of business partners that collaborate on the topic ‘upcycling of food losses’. The community setting creates a safe environment where organizations can share ideas, get inspired on new developments and insights from the market and research. In the current phase of creating a pre-competitive atmosphere within the Upcycling Community, Foodvalley NL focusses in 2023 on three concrete barriers mentioned by our community partners:

• Upcycling to the consumer The question is whether consumers are willing to consume products made of ‘food waste’. Are consumers interested in a traceable private standard? We need to create the right insights and conditions to get circular products on the shelves. The webinar of 14 February 2023 was a starting point for Foodvalley NL to bring together the relevant insights and stakeholders to define what is needed to accelerate the market development for upcycled products. Later in 2023 we will launch of a market and innovation scan that Foodvalley NL will develop in collaboration with her partners, to address the potential of specific side streams and further data and consumer insights about the Business to Consumer market for upcycled ingredients and food concepts.
• Bridging food innovators Food manufacturers are often not ready to invest in product development/ lab research to realise an update for more circular ingredients. They have strict conditions for the availability, price and quality of ingredients, which will put up barriers for the transition to new value chain with more circular ingredients. We need to create the right conditions to make purchasers / product developers of manufacturers replace virgin ingredients. On 23 May 2023 we will follow up on this topic and organize a Community-partner-only PRE-Event of the Food & Agri Next (F&A Next) event in Wageningen about Bridging Food Innovators’.
• Fact based decision making More processing steps, can be associated with more costs, higher carbon and water footprint and a loss of total usable nutrients. In order to make the right decisions with respect to the valorisation of side streams or purchasing of circular ingredients, decisions making modelling can help companies in their development and investment decisions regarding the valorisation of side streams or the purchase of upcycled ingredients. On 11 April 2023 there will be an online community partner-only acceleration session about decision making modelling for the upcycling of side streams of food industry. We organise this in close collaboration with Wageningen University and Qing.