Upcycling Opportunities with Daniel Kurzrock of ReGrained
Today, you will hear from Daniel Kurzrock, CEO and Co-Founder of ReGrained, an ingredient platform and packaged foods innovator, that specializes in upcycling overlooked and undervalued ingredients. He is also a Board Member of the Upcycled Food Association, a non-profit focused on reducing food waste by growing the upcycled food economy. Upcycling was upgraded to the #1 most pressing solution to solving the climate crises by Project Drawdown earlier this year. Dan is an entrepreneurial systems thinker and loves tackling seemingly intractable problems through creative entrepreneurship and cross-sectoral collaboration. Through ReGrained, he has become a thought-leader about food waste business models, "edible upcycling,” and the circular economy for food.
In this episode, Dan explains how ReGrained works with brewery partners to rescue the grain after they have extracted the sugars needed to make beer, using this byproduct to create upcycled nutrition bars, puffs, and premium ingredients. Find out about the scale of the food waste issue and the exciting opportunities available in upcycling to put food to its best use – feeding people! You’ll discover the difference between upcycling and recycling or downcycling, some alternative examples of upcycling, and Dan shares some of his favorite companies in the food upcycling business. He also has some tips and advice for those looking to get into the upcycling industry by taking action and choosing partners carefully. Dan believes that we can create real and effective change through creative thinking and acting on our ideas. Listen until the end to hear a simple process you can use to find upcycling opportunities in your business today!
Key Points From This Episode:
Hear a brief introduction of Dan and his work, and how upcycling combats food waste.
Dan shares some of the numbers on food waste and explains why it is such a big issue.
Exciting opportunities in upcycling and putting food to its best use; feeding people.
The concept of creating products out of waste isn’t a groundbreaking one; think of whey, a byproduct in the cheesemaking process.
Dan explains how this business was borne from a college hobby of home brewing beer.
Hear about ReGrained’s basic business model; from beer to CPG products.
The differences between upcycling, recycling, and downcycling in terms of food.
The market opportunity in reducing food waste due to an increase in consumer interest.
Why upcycling food is the ultimate intersection between sustainability and health – and, done well, it’s also very tasty!
ReGrained’s vision is to work with other companies to create more upcycled food products.
Choosing to engage in upcycling is 100% within your control to reduce your carbon footprint.
Other examples of upcycling; including root-to-stem or nose-to-tail culinary trends.
Dan reiterates that upcycling isn’t a new concept; food has always been like this!
The issue with labelling a product “waste” and how ReGrained has gotten around it.
Dan names some of his upcycling contemporaries, like Spare Food Co or Pulp Pantry.
Utilizing cascara or the coffee fruit and leaf from the plant, rather than just the bean for coffee.
Similarly, the cacao fruit can be used for a range of products, not just the seeds for chocolate.
How Toast Ale brews craft beer with surplus fresh bread that would otherwise be wasted.
Dan’s tip for those looking to get into upcycling: stop thinking about it and just get started!
How upcycling presents opportunities to break down traditional silos within companies.
Creating shared value between ingredient companies and food companies.
How upcycling creates economic value for suppliers by buying ingredients that would otherwise be wasted.
Advice for upcyclers to overcome future challenges; like choosing your partners carefully.
How growing supply chains can help bring down costs and increase demand for products.
Hear more about the Upcycled Food Association, and how to become a member.
Dan believes that it takes creative thinking and action on those ideas to create real change.
Lastly, Gage outlines the four-step process for identifying upcycling opportunities for your business: identify, rescue, innovate, filter.
Tweetables:
“With upcycled food, what we’re looking at are ingredients that would have otherwise not gone to human consumption but they are maybe going into compost, or they are going to biodigestion for energy creation. It’s about opportunity that is being left off the table.” — Daniel Kurzrock [0:04:04]
“Our tagline used to be, ‘Have your beer and eat it too.’ I think that really captures the spirit of our relationship with the breweries.” — Daniel Kurzrock [0:10:47]
“It’s this ultimate intersection between sustainability and health and, when it’s done well, it’s also incredibly tasty.” — Daniel Kurzrock [0:15:03]
“As our food system has gotten more industrialized and specialized, too often we’ve veered away from that [upcycling] ideal. Waste is built into the system. It’s the status quo.” — Daniel Kurzrock [0:22:42]
“With upcyling, it also presents an interesting opportunity to break down the traditional silos that exist within a company, especially within big companies. A lot of times, new ingredients will live in product development land… but, without a path to market, it’s not going to go anywhere.” — Daniel Kurzrock [0:31:10]
“We don’t want to reinvent the [consumer packaged goods] wheel. We want to help play a role in deciding where it’s rolling by providing this new supply chain that brings a lot of benefits.” — Daniel Kurzrock [0:40:35]
“There’s opportunities to bring upcycled food and, more broadly, action against reducing waste and climate [change]. It just takes thinking creatively and taking action on those creative ideas.” — Daniel Kurzrock [0:40:54]
