{"id":10980,"date":"2022-06-24T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-24T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rangeme.com\/blog\/?p=10980"},"modified":"2025-10-07T12:08:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T20:08:14","slug":"upcycled-food-and-beverages-are-on-the-up-and-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rangeme.com\/blog\/upcycled-food-and-beverages-are-on-the-up-and-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Upcycled Food and Beverages Are on the Up and Up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Our grandmothers did it really well: Taking leftover foods and turning them into something else. Scraps of vegetables and animal bones made stock; leftover bread turned into bread pudding; croutons became breadcrumbs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s old is new again and companies are following grandma\u2019s lead. And now it\u2019s got a new fancy name: Upcycling. Upcycling means taking food that would otherwise be wasted and turning it into something new. It also means, hopefully, that the 1.3 billion tons of food that is wasted every year, according to the Food & Agriculture Association, will be reduced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

America\u2019s upcycled industry was estimated at $46.7 billion in 2019, according to the Financial Times<\/em><\/a> and by this year, more than 160 products from 37 companies are Upcycled Certified by the Upcycled Food Association<\/a> (UFA), Greenwood Village, Colo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upcycling is gaining traction, especially with the environmentally minded, but even big companies are getting in on the action. Anheuser Busch is building two facilities, in the U.S. and Belgium, to process barley, which would otherwise be discarded or fed to cattle, to sell to companies like Nestle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The greatest solution<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Upcycling means doing more with less and protecting the planet at the same time. According to Project Drawdown, a reduction in food waste is the single greatest solution to climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUpcycling is absolutely on the rise,\u201d says Maeve Webster, president of foodservice consultancy Menu Matters, Arlington, Vt. \u201cIt fits very well with the increased focus on environmental issues and consumer interest in solutions that help address this in a mindful and effective way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New certification<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To help highlight upcycled foods, the UFA was created in 2019. In 2021, this group created a certification and logo for packaging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can expect to see many more upcycled products, says the UFA. There are currently 90 companies in the pipeline to become upcycled certified and some 400 upcycled products in the market. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith more consumers seeking solutions to combat food waste, upcycled products and the upcycled claim are creating a positive spin on previous terms such as misfit, by-product and food waste,\u201d points out Melissa Abbott, vice president, Hartman Retainer Services, The Hartman Group, Bellevue, Wash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brands incorporating upcycled ingredients are gaining attention, she adds, \u201cby creating value-added products that connect with various food and beverage trends, indicating how sustainability and wellness trends share attributes and cues sought by the modern consumer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2.25 billion coffee fruit<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the spring of 2021, The Other Side Of Coffee<\/a> entered the retail space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The three drinks from this Seal Beach, Calif.-based company are made with coffee fruit, which surrounds coffee beans, and is otherwise waste that can harm ecosystems and release alarming amounts of methane and CO2<\/sub>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCoffee should be the poster child for upcycling because of the sheer quantity of waste with 2.25 billion cups of coffee consumed every day globally,\u201d says Adela Romero, CEO and founder. <\/p>\n\n\n\n