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UPcycled4Food Initiative

Collaboration for driving the demand for upcycled food & ingredients

Upcycled products and ingredients should be widely adopted by food manufacturers, on supermarket shelves and food service offerings. That’s the goal of the UPcycled4Food Initiative, launched by Foodvalley’s Upcycling Community Partners. 

A space where challenges are met together

To meet the global demand for sufficient, affordable, healthy, and sustainable food, Foodvalley has made upcycling a key focus. We see it as a major lever for transforming side streams into mainstream food solutions to unlocking value, reducing waste, and building resilience.

Recognizing the urgency and opportunity, Foodvalley launched The Upcycling Community in May 2022 to connect innovators (technology providers, ingredient developers, research institutes) and market leaders (food manufacturers, retailers, foodservice).

The goal: Create a collaborative space where challenges are tackled together, and solutions are co-developed, tested, and scaled. Based on extensive stakeholder engagement and insights from our Position Paper on Upcycled Food & Ingredients, shortage of demand is the most pressing barrier to scaling upcycled food. Despite the growing number of innovations, many solutions fail to scale. Why? Because market demand is not yet strong or clear enough. Retailers, manufacturers, and foodservice providers often want to act, but face too much uncertainty.

Underlying causes for uncertainty to scale

  • The novelty of upcycling and the lack of clear frameworks 
  • Difficulty in identifying and scaling the most impactful solutions 
  • Retailers struggle to assess the value of upcycled products and select the best options 
  • Unclear alignment with Sustainability Targets, especially around procurement and Scope 3 emissions 

Photograpy: Marnix Klooster

Our Phased Approach to Driving Demand

To close the gap between innovation and adoption, Foodvalley works with industry leaders and innovators to build demand through a structured, phased approach: 

  • Create clarity: Develop shared definitions, standards, and understanding of upcycled food 
  • Build visibility: Provide trusted, comparable methodologies to assess the environmental, nutritional and economic impact 
  • Foster focus: Help off-takers prioritize scalable, high-impact solutions aligned with business goals 

By addressing these barriers collectively, we can accelerate the shift from potential to practice and make upcycled food part of the mainstream.

Photograpy: Marnix Klooster

What’s Next?

With the UPcycled4Food initiative, Foodvalley is committed to building a stronger foundation for the upcycled food sector by: 

  • Fostering shared definitions and standards 
  • Supporting product validation and comparative LCA tools 
  • Creating clearer market signals from off-takers 
  • Building investor and partner confidence through viable business models 

We are working to change that, by building shared understanding, creating trusted tools for impact, and connecting innovators with off-takers ready to lead the way. Whether you’re a startup with a novel upcycling technology, a food producer with side streams, or a retailer, food service organisation or food manufacturer, UPcycled4Food offers you a platform to innovate, collaborate, and scale.

Explore Position Paper on Upcycled Food & Ingredients  Connect with The Upcycling Community

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