Shaping the Future of Upcycling Together: Insights from the Upcycling Community Session  

How partners across the circular agrifood chain shared successes, uncovered challenges, and activated new collaborations within the Upcycling Community. 

During the Annual Foodvalley Partner Event the theme was ‘The Future on Our Plate: On Track or Off Course?’. During the community break-out for The Upcycling Community an interactive session was dedicated to check-in with partners and share what is needed to overcome challenges and strengthening collaboration within the space of upcycling.

The focus was on a structured approach of different phases: share successes, identifying the key challenges, linking them to the specific needs of individual partners, and exploring opportunities to address these through targeted value chain collaborations or by leveraging the strength of the community.  

The session brought to life the core idea behind The Upcycling Community: circularity is a team effort, enabled by connection, transparency, and action. 

Sharing Successes & Celebrating Progress

This phase revealed the breadth of innovation already taking place within the community. 
Partners shared successes such as: 

• New collaborations that unlocked previously underused side streams. 

• Technical breakthroughs that improved the quality, safety or scalability of upcycled ingredients. 

• Market traction: new products reaching consumers, retailers showing interest, or buyers committing to circular sourcing. 

• Organisational progress, such as new teams, dedicated upcycling roles, or investments in circular R&D. 

Ambitions & Challenges

The conclusion made one thing clear: upcycling is gaining real traction. New partnerships are forming, investments are flowing into circular businesses, and market interest is growing. Yet, challenges and related ambitions of the community remain: 

• growing consumer and industry awareness of upcycling, 

• enabling regulatory conditions, 

• and strengthening connection across the chain. 

Partners then formulated the challenges that currently hinder their organisations from contributing fully to those goals. These included frustrations around regulatory uncertainty, difficulties in finding the right partners, lack of market visibility, fragmented data, and operational barriers in scaling upcycled production. 

From Shared Challenges to Collective Action

Partners identified three priority areas. First, awareness: how to make “upcycled” a true USP for consumers and create market pull? The community stressed the need to understand what consumers value beyond sustainability and to build awareness through clear messaging and campaigns. This also applies to competing with low-cost commodities and ensuring sustainability goals reach procurement managers. 

Second, regulatory barriers remain significant. Current policies do little to stimulate demand for circular raw materials, and companies that valorize side streams are not rewarded compared to polluters, linking to the broader true value / true cost debate. EU novel food legislation creates lengthy, costly approval processes, while fragmented requirements and the absence of harmonized standards add complexity. Pre-competitive collaboration could speed up research and strengthen joint lobbying efforts. 

Finally, connectivity: partners highlighted the need for cost-effective processing solutions, better matching between technology providers and co-product owners, and early adopters willing to pilot upcycled products. Shared infrastructure and stronger links across the chain are essential to unlock scale. 

In the closing phase, these challenges were turned into solutions at the ‘community marketplace’. Partners offered expertise, contacts, and ideas, creating a vivid display of community strength and reinforcing one clear message: progress accelerates when challenges become shared commitments and concrete actions. 

Strenghtening Collaboration Beyond the Session

We closed the session by looking toward upcoming moments where the community will continue this momentum: amongst others Innovation Insights the 25^th of March at FrieslandCampina, partner of The Upcycling Community, during the Week of the Circular Economy.  This will be another valuable opportunity to build upon the collaborations around moving towards circular agrifood systems, and strengthen existing partnerships within the Foodvalley Community and Initiatives and beyond.  

The energy in the room showed that The Upcycling Community is not just exchanging insights. It is growing into a connected, collaborative ecosystem dedicated to creating value from what once was considered waste. 

Circular Leadership: MaGie Creations wins Foodvalley Award 2025

At the end of the day came the ultimate proof and a powerful boost for the upcycling field: MagieCreations, partner of The Upcycling Community, winning the prestigious Foodvalley Award 2025. We are immensely proud of Madeleine Gielens, founder of MagieCreations, whose unwavering circular mission since 2016, relentless innovation, and pioneering spirit have brought her to this milestone, now leading the way with PowerBond, a clean-label, fiber-rich emulsifier that redefines functional ingredients in a circular economy. With her products already on the shelves of several Dutch retailers, Madeleine is proving that upcycling is not just a vision—it’s a growing reality. 

More info: Winner of the Foodvalley Award 2025 Announced – Foodvalley 

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