Insights from Phase 1 UPcycled4Food Initiative  

Building Momentum for Upcycled Food Across the Value Chain 

Phase 1 of UPcycled4Food marks a milestone in building a movement for upcycled food. On 19 and 25 November, we organised two hybrid consortium meetings with around 15 participants per session, bringing together a diverse mix of Dutch and international partners.

This included food manufacturers, retailers, and foodservice companies—such as Albert Heijn, LIDL, Join Program (partner Vermaat Group), Royal Smilde, TransFoodMission, Nestlé Nederland, Van Loon Group, Van Eigen Deeg and Lekkerkerker Food —alongside suppliers of upcycled ingredients contributing products, technologies, and value propositions to the Upcycling Toolbox. Among these suppliers are numerous solution providers from Foodvalley’s Upcycling Community, including Revyve, MagieCreations, GreenSpot Tech, Agrain, Biorefinery Solutions, Upgrain, Greencovery, Caffe Inc. and many more.

Building Consensus for Change: Upcycling Strategies Driven by Retail and Foodservice Needs, Enabled by Industry Solutions

The category-specific consortia aimed to agree on reference products and outline initial reformulation strategies for high-volume mainstream products based on sales volumes, ensuring scalable upcycling without compromising essential specifications and values.

Why this approach? Because values and needs differ by category, and real reformulation only works when companies define opportunities and conditions for change. Today, solution providers offer a wide range of applications and value propositions to retailers, foodservice, and manufacturers, making it hard to match offerings to specific product needs. Greater alignment on what’s needed and what’s possible creates clearer guidance for impactful upcycling strategies.

In Phase 2, pre-competitive, independent impact assessments will further substantiate this guidance, enabling integration into CSR policies and related procurement and marketing strategies across the value chain.

Both consortium sessions, Bread, Bakery & Confectionery and Meat & Dairy Alternatives including blended, revealed strong opportunities for upcycling strategies. 

• In Bakery & Confectionery, cookies and biscuits emerged as the category with the highest potential for upcycling innovation, while bread & rolls were identified as most promising for mainstream adoption based on sales volumes of this type products. 

• In the Meat & Dairy Alternatives category, top-voted products included blended burgers and sausages, plant-based burgers, and—looking slightly further ahead—blended dairy products. These were prioritised based on their innovation potential, expected impact, and significant sales volumes. 

Results voting of Meat & Dairy category

Importantly, the initiative will not limit its focus to these categories alone. UPcycled4Food will dive deeper into a top 3–5 product types per category, based on the highest votes and strategic relevance, to develop targeted reformulation strategies that maximise upcycling potential and meet mainstream adoption criteria.

Pathways for Reformulation based on values of Upcycled Ingredients

For these top-voted product types, partners identified several pathways to accelerate the uptake of upcycled ingredients. These strategies leverage the benefits of upcycled ingredients that align with value propositions sought by retailers and foodservice providers—such as improving nutritional performance or enhancing environmental impact scores—while also addressing challenges linked to conventional ingredients, including price volatility and supply chain reliability. 

Value chain actors discussed concrete reformulation strategies, including replacing conventional grains, eggs, oils, fats, and tropical plant-based ingredients such as cocoa. The Upcycling Toolkit already contains strong candidate ingredients derived from various side streams, such as brewery residues, vegetable and fruit by-products, and soy and oat-based streams, which are key raw materials for many plant-based products. Delivered through diverse technologies and production processes, these ingredients offer significant potential to substitute or complement traditional ingredients of mainstream food products while improving sustainability, nutritional value, and even price competitiveness. 

At the same time, the sessions highlighted gaps in the availability of upcycled ingredients that could meet specific value propositions for replacing conventional components. Addressing these gaps will be essential to unlock the full potential of reformulation strategies and ensure that upcycling solutions align with industry needs. 

The momentum continues in early 2026.

Join-in!

Not yet part of the movement?
On 3 and 5 February, we will host 1-hour online Join-In sessions (from 9-10 AM CET) designed to validate the selected reference products and the suggested value propositions of upcycled ingredients and products. These sessions will bring in additional perspectives from food manufacturers, retail and foodservice players, and solution providers—ensuring that strategies are aligned with real-world needs and conditions. Register now.