New: UPcycled4Food Initiative

Starting with an ambition

Upcycled products and ingredients should be widely adopted by food manufacturers, on supermarket shelves and food service offerings. That’s the ambition of the new Upcycled4Food Initiative, launched by Foodvalley’s Upcycling Community.

Food losses occur throughout the entire supply chain, from farms to retail. Although prevention of food losses and waste is a top priority, at Foodvalley we believe that the reintegration of unavoidable losses and side streams into the agrifood system should be the subsequent priority. Despite existing technologies to repurpose food losses, transitioning from a linear to a circular value chain remains challenging. Optimal upcycling of residue streams across various sectors, including food, animal feed, fertilizers, and non-agrifood markets, poses significant difficulties. To address these issues, the Foodvalley Upcycling Community was established to foster collaboration and remove barriers, promoting a shift towards circular agrifood value chains through increased awareness and shared ambitions.

First initiative

Our position paper “Upcycled Food and Ingredients” addresses promoting the use of side streams in food production from scientific, regulatory, and industry perspectives. Partners across the food industry, scientific institutes, governments, market research agencies, and other organisations defined upcycling, explained its importance, outlined implementation strategies and to be solved barriers, and illustrated how the growth of this market relatively new market for upcycled food and ingredients could be accelerated.

Next steps to take action

Based on the insights provided in the position paper, the next step is to scale and expand the success of front runners, transitioning from a niche market to widespread use and procurement of upcycled ingredients and products. Achieving this requires the involvement of multiple stakeholders who can shape new value propositions and how they fit with future market demands. Foodvalley will spearhead the UPcycled4Food initiative, focusing on collaboration across the value chain and accelerating the adoption of upcycled products and ingredients, pushing the ambition to make upcycling the new normal mainstream choice for manufacturers, food service companies and retailers. By collaborating, partners can attribute to implement strategies to enhance the visibility and accessibility of upcycled products and ingredients in food products, supermarkets, and food service offerings, making upcycling products and ingredients the new normal in the market.

Additionally, this initiative will explore new product categories where upcycled ingredients have great but untapped potential like bakery, confectionary & pastry products, soups & sauces, savory products, meat & dairy alternatives, beverages, and ready-to-eat meals.

Be part of this journey

Do you want to participate and join this groundbreaking initiative and be among the frontrunners in the spotlight? Register directly via this form. We will then contact you about the details.