INGREDIENTS UGLY FOOD WASTE
stores at all. They simply aren’t aesthetically pleasing enough, or they’re not the ‘right’ size, or perhaps they’re a little beaten up.
And although some wonky fruit and veg will find new life within the food industry as soups, sauces, smoothies, etc, on supermarkets shelves, clearly this is not enough to mitigate the major issue of food waste. “Waste comes in many forms, a lot of which can be avoided entirely. Take, for example, the 50-plus million tonnes of fruit and vegetables grown across Europe that are discarded each year, largely because they do not meet the aesthetic standards expected by supermarkets and consumers,” says Harry McIlwraith , General Manager of Full Circle. “The climate change impact of growing this wasted food is equivalent to the carbon emissions of almost 400,000 cars. The losses are significant, especially since this plant-based waste can contain a lot of valuable vitamins and nutrients that would be particularly ideal for beauty and personal care products.” Turner Wyatt is Chief Executive Officer of the Upcycled Food Association, which was founded in 2019 and now includes nearly 190 businesses across 20 countries. The association worked with groups including the World Wildlife Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Harvard Law School to formally define ‘upcycled food’, before taking that definition and turning it into “a really rigorous certification standard”, says Wyatt. While the Upcycled Food Association doesn’t have a specific category for upcycled cosmetics, Wyatt explains that it does certify cosmetics. He tells Cosmetics Business that he often asks people to consider who “across the food supply chain, from farmers to grocery stores to consumers, is the worst waster of food?” The answer, he reveals, at least in North America, is consumers, followed by farms, despite the fact that “most people think that retailers, grocery stores and restaurants are the worst”. “In reality,” he adds, “it’s
consumers in North America and then farms. And, across the world, generally, farms and consumers are the two entity types in our food supply chain that waste the most food.”
Equally damningly for us all as buyers and eaters of food, waste at farm level is largely also due to consumers. Specifically, it’s due to farmers being pressured to meet our sky-high expectations when it comes to what we pick off shelves. “The culprit in terms of the standards is really us, again, as consumers, because the grocery store wants to sell all of the food in there, the farms certainly want to sell all of the foods that they grow, they don’t take pleasure in culling out the misshapen produce or the bruised produce, and having to throw it away,” says Wyatt. “They do that because of our standards of what produce should look like. So, if we, as consumers
18 November 2021
and as eaters of food, can reframe our definition of what is a healthy, nutritious and beautiful apple, for example, then the supply chain will adjust to meet our needs to an extent.
“But, in the meantime, we do need to come up with steps to solve the problem in the immediate term.”
Addressing the sheer scale of food waste, Wyatt reveals that: “Until very recently, we thought that, globally, there’s about a billion tonnes of food that goes to waste every year. And most goals, such as the Sustainable Development Goal 12.3, aim to halve food waste by 2030. So, that means we have to figure out what to do with 500 million tonnes of food by 2030. “Well, a couple of months ago, the World Wildlife Fund and some other groups published a study where they found that, actually, the number of pounds that goes to waste is 2.5 billion tonnes – two and a half times as much as we thought. So, now halving food waste by 2030 becomes a much bigger problem.”
So, with the pressure being well and truly ‘on’, how can beauty help provide immediate relief?
WHAT’S ON THE MARKET? Wyatt’s hope is that sectors like beauty can ask themselves: “‘There are all these carrots going to waste right now: how can we make a beautiful dye or a beautiful pureé that is good for your skin, or good for your stomach, or good for your brain by consuming it in some form or another?’ Because these ingredients... are just like any other ingredient.”
Indeed, some have the potential to be even more potent than conventional alternatives. For instance, the UpCircle brand’s website notes that the antioxidant level in coffee increases as it’s brewed. Meanwhile, Full Circle’s McIlwraith tells Cosmetics Business: “During our research, we found that our upcycled ingredients can significantly outperform conventional ingredients, proving that formulators don’t have to sacrifice quality or performance to be
sustainable.
“For example, Hemp NECTA, our upcycled active oil, has 52% higher antioxidant capacity than conventional hemp seed oil and has been proven to rapidly reduce skin redness in just 30 minutes.” Fortunately, there are cosmetics players, both big and small, who are jumping on the ‘ugly food’ issue for inspiration. Natura & Co-owned The Body Shop’s Carrot Cream Moisturiser is created from carrots not deemed ‘pretty’ enough to be sold on the market, while products from Kadalys are based on sustainable banana science and give a second life to ‘forgotten bananas’.
And ingredients suppliers are also interacting with a diversity of industries to discover what rejected produce might provide the feedstock for
cosmeticsbusiness.com
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