Upcycled food is now an officially defined term, which advocates say will encourage broader consumer and industry support for products that help reduce food waste. Upcycling—transforming ingredients that would have been wasted into edible food products—has been gaining ground in alternative food movements for several years but had never been officially defined.
The Upcycled Food Association announced on May 19 that they define upcycled foods as ones that “use ingredients that otherwise would not have gone to human consumption, are procured and produced using verifiable supply chains, and have a positive impact on the environment.”
The definition was drafted by a working group convened by the Upcycled Food Association, which included representatives from Harvard University, Drexel University, Natural Resources Defense Council, World Wildlife Fund, and ReFED, a nonprofit that analyzes solutions to food waste. Standardizing the term is a key step toward legislation that supports upcycling, according to Emily Broad Leib, a Harvard University law professor and the director of Harvard’s Food Law and Policy Clinic.
In recent years, upcycling has emerged as a way for food producers to add value to byproducts or surplus ingredients that might otherwise have been wasted. Already, food companies such as Philabundance and Treasure8 are repurposing safely edible ingredients, like excess milk or “ugly” vegetables, into nutritious cheeses and chips.
Considering that the US is one of the biggest culprits of food waste, giving more legal rights to upcycled food can be a pivotal move in curbing food waste.
