Upcycling Food

News

30 June 2022

Scaling up initiatives for upcycling of food

On 13 September 2022 Foodvalley NL organises a first hybrid event for their Upcycling Community. The event aims to inspire community partners with innovative developments, initiatives and research outcomes related to ‘upcycling food’, presented by knowledgeable speakers.

Major opportunities

The Upcycling Community focusses on scaling up the use of residual streams for human consumption to take a big step towards a circular sustainable food system. There are great opportunities for new products that want to apply circular raw materials. But to realise this, knowledge, technology and a transition of current supply chains are needed. Challenges such as product quality, safety, consumer acceptance of circular food concepts and the environmental gain or loss of processing side streams into food grade ingredients need a pre-competitive approach.

Accelerate upcycling food

To accelerate the transition of upcycling food, co-creation and rock-solid cooperation are needed. That is why Foodvalley NL is starting an Upcycling Community, to create a safe environment where organisations can develop their ideas together and gain inspiration from each other. With the right support and a mix of cross-sector organisations, we can make a circular impact. Although the Upcycling Community takes a broad view of residual flows from food production, it started with the residual flow brewer’s spent grain. This, due the enormous potential based on the nutritional value, volume and potential areas of application.

Join our first hybrid Upcycling Community event on 13 September 2022

During our first hybrid event on Tuesday 13 September in Wageningen, the Upcycling Community will be inspired with technical processing methods to create high value out of coproducts. The Upcycling Community will also explore the market strategy to create scale for circular ingredient and circular food concepts that needs to go along with consumer acceptance. Prior to the plenary meeting, there will be a networking lunch with lots of inspiration for upcycling from food waste to food!

Does your company want to grow within the upcycling of food? Are you curious what the Upcycling Community can mean for you and would you like to join this event? Please contact Caroline Duivenvoorden, Programme Manager Circular Agrifood, for more information about the Upcycling Community.

We’re really looking forward to joining this community, building on the how we’ve seen the Protein Community develop since its inception and the opportunities this has identified. As a member of the Champions 12.3 10x20x30 initiative, a global coalition of leaders from governments, businesses and civil society, we’ve committed to halve food waste. However to transform the food system we cannot do this alone – we view partnership as the new leadership and we’re embracing collaboration with others for change – that includes suppliers, retailers, our peers and governments. We hope this community will grow and ultimately help foster collaboration across different areas of the food industry to find ways to upcycle materials at all stages of the food chain.

Alistair Smith, Senior R&D Manager at Unilever

Because WASTE ME UP is working in the field of valorization with Brew Saved Grains, we would like to share knowledge and experiences with others companies involved in this same topic. We would like to build some projects to improve this subject. We are convinced that it’s important to work together to go quickly and deeper and specially with some partners from others countries.

Frédéric Maudy, president at WASTE ME UP

Green Cell Technologies mission is to market, sell, distribute and logistically support Disruptors to our clients in all associated industries. Our expectation for this community is to gain exposure to the processors and academia to spread the word as to the benefits of Disruptor Technology so that the consumer can gain from its benefits and the environment can benefit from it.

Roy Henderson, Chief Executive Officer at Green Cell Technologies