6 upcycled food trends to watch

A lot has changed since 2019. The Upcycled Food Association (UFA) was founded later that year to bring together like-minded producers; by late 2020, its membership had increased more than tenfold. In 2021, UFA launched its own certification program, the first of its kind: Upcycled Certified, which requires a supply chain audit and measures the amount of potential food waste diverted by a given product. Now, with nearly 500 products bearing the label, the program has been acquired by Where Food Comes From, a large third-party certifier.

“Overall, the upcycled food products market is experiencing robust growth,” says Angie Crone, UFA’s CEO. In 2021, an Allied Market Research analysis valued the market at $53.7 billion; it also predicted that number would reach $97 billion within a decade. “Turning wasted food into a revenue stream while meeting the increasing consumer demand…is, frankly, a no-brainer,” Crone says, citing “resilience against supply chain disruptions” as one of the many benefits for brands.

We checked back in with Deutsch, now a member of the Specialty Food Association‘s trendspotter panel, who has also noticed a shift. “It’s definitely a growing category, but it’s also a normalizing one,” he says. “When I started in this field, the conventional wisdom was that consumers would reject products if they knew they were made from food that would otherwise be wasted.” These days, though, some data suggests that up to 41 percent of shoppers are familiar with the upcycling concept — meaning there’s less need for brands to explain “the what and why.” Instead, Deutsch says, brands can treat upcycled ingredients like “a product attribute along with others.”

Upcycling is also being taken more seriously as a policy tool. Crone notes the recent inclusion in the proposed national food waste strategy and the EPA’s updated Wasted Food Scale, indicating growing recognition of upcycling as “a high-impact, circular solution to combat the climate crisis at the federal level.”

Will upcycling ever be a comprehensive solution to our food waste woes? The answer is likely no — or rather, that we can’t do it with upcycling alone. Food waste still produces an estimated 6 to 8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and bringing that figure down will require massive change on many levels. But the dent upcycling is making is only growing. And interest in upcycled products, from consumers and companies alike, doesn’t seem like it will be flagging any time soon. Deutsch puts it simply: “It’s the right thing to do, and it’s good business.”

Keep reading for some trends we’re seeing as upcycled food finds its footing.

Rescued produce gets saucy

In 2022, we invited Matriark Foods founder Anna Hammond to talk to us about the problem of food waste on the first season of our podcast. Launched with food service settings in mind, Matriark has since ventured into grocery: Its flagship tomato sauces, made with imperfect and surplus plum tomatoes, are now available in stores throughout the New York City area. Turns out, blending scraps and surplus into something new is a great way to transform them. Brooklyn’s City Saucery also makes its tomato sauces with “ugly” tomatoes. Elsewhere in the country, Maine-based company Scraps makes pesto, zhoug and chimichurri with carrot tops from local farms, and condiments company Fila Manila makes its banana ketchup — ubiquitous in Filipino cuisine — with upcycled bananas. 

More brands take a “whole pod” approach

After beans are extracted from the cacao pod for chocolate production, there is little market for the fruit and husk that makes up the rest of it — meaning many cacao growers must essentially throw away the bulk of their crop. One company trying to change that is Upcycled Foods, Inc. (formerly ReGrained), which recently partnered with Xoca to source surplus cacao fruit from small family farmers in Ecuador for a unique and versatile syrup. Xoca uses the cacao syrup in its sparkling drinks; it’s also the base of other products, like the new mole bitters from Fee Brothers. Other entities working to rescue cacao fruit and pods include Koa and Candid, both of which use cacao fruit pulp in their products, and Hershey-backed Blue Stripes, from the founder of chocolate company Max Brenner — which uses cacao fruit and husk in its chocolate bars and other products. The Cocoa Future Collaborative has rounded up even more ways producers are using the rest of the cacao, from snacks to spirits.

Upcycling hits the sweet spot

It’s not just chocolate — Deutsch identifies ice creams and confections more broadly as categories to watch. Products like baking mixes can be an effective way to sneak in unusual ingredients: UFA member company Bake Me Healthy, for example, makes various vegan mixes with additions like the husks of coffee cherries and the pulp that’s left over after sunflower oil production. Portland-based based ice cream company Salt & Straw launched an upcycled foods series in 2023, incorporating ingredients like upcycled okara (soybean pulp) from Renewal Mill and bread pudding made with stale loaves from restaurants and grocery stores, part of a partnership with Urban Gleaners. The next collection of upcycled flavors is coming later this year. And surplus produce is the foundational ingredient in FAVES: a new candy product from Amy Keller, whose family founded the Spangler Candy Company (maker of Dum Dums lollipops). The idea, Keller says, came to her while reading “Drawdown,” a best-selling book of strategies for climate mitigation. “I grew up around candy,” she explains. “I wanted to push it further…into something with even more lasting impact.”