Kerry is partnering with Upcycled Foods to develop an upcycled protein crisp formulated to add texture and nutrition to products in a sustainable manner. The company explains that “upcycled foods are made from ingredients that would otherwise have ended up in a food waste destination.”

The companies report that crisps are a natural start for their collaboration due to their ubiquitous nature in a wide range of snack products – that go from bars to cereals, passing through crunchy mixes – with the businesses reporting that there is already interest from manufacturers.

“Our food manufacturer partners come to us searching for R&D expertise and ingredient solutions for new sustainable foods. Value-added ingredient applications like our new crisp offer a platform for finished product innovation, thus enabling more partners to have a bigger impact,” says Dan Kurzrock, Founder & CEO of Upcycled Food.

“Collaborating with Kerry exponentially amplifies our mission to better align the food we eat with the planet we love,” he continues.

The company unveiled its upcycled crisp at IFT FIRST Annual Event Expo in Chicago, wher FoodIngredientsFirst was present. 

Upcycled ingredients
The developed upcycled grains, called ReGrained SuperGrain, contain enough reused ingredients to apply for the Upcycled Certified ingredient standard from the Upcycled Food Association.

The plant-based crisp delivers 40% protein and 16% fiber. (Credit Upcycled Foods).The plant-based crisp delivers 40% protein and 16% fiber, suitable for vegetarian, vegan, and kosher applications, and is made in the US,” says Upcycled Foods.

Innovating new upcycled ingredient solutions with Upcycled Food Inc.’s leadership enables us to develop exciting new food items that live up to this vision and move us towards our goal of reaching over 2 billion people with sustainable nutrition solutions by 2030,” says John Kaufmann, senior director of business development at Kerry.

Upcycle trend gaining traction
With inflation heating up, supply chain issues making access to ingredients a challenge and sustainable goals gaining importance among climate-conscious businesses, upcycling is a trend that is here to stay.

This May, Raisio and the Nordic Umami Company announced they are partnering to explore opportunities for upcycling Raisio’s plant-based side streams and to develop natural umami. 

Meanwhile, Blendhub is joining Essence Food, a specialist transforming surplus food into functional products to reduce waste and food loss. The companies will collaborate on developing affordable, nutritional food products from surpluses.

There is a vast diversity of ingredients that can be upcycled, including Bovine colostrum, a nutrient-rich milky fluid that comes from the udder of cows in the first few days after giving birth – being 95% equivalent to those found in human breast milk – and that dairy company Maolac is trying to reuse through a machine learning developed process.

Innova Market Insights named “Upcycling Redefined” one of its Top Ten Trends for 2022, a part of the more significant number one trend: “Shared Planet.”