The hot new trend in food is literal garbage

Flour milled from discarded coffee fruit. Chips made from juice pulp. Vodka distilled from strawberries that nobody seems to want.

Not so long ago, such waste-based products were novelties for the Whole Foods set. But in the past three years, there has been an explosion in the number of startups making products from food waste, according to a new industry census by the nonprofit coalition ReFED.

The recent report, which tracks trends across the food-waste diversion industry, found that only 11 such companies existed in 2011. By 2013, that number had doubled, and ReFED now logs 64 established companies selling ugly-fruit jam, stale-bread beer and other “upcycled” food products.

The companies have diverted thousands of pounds of food waste from landfills, a source of greenhouse gas emissions. They’ve also become a model for larger, multinational food companies, which are starting to realize that upcycling peels and piths can be good business.

“What was once considered ‘waste’ — or an accepted cost of doing business — is now seen as an asset and revenue generator,” said Chris Cochran, the executive director of ReFED. “As companies begin to track, measure, and understand food loss and waste, the economics of food waste solutions begin to look a lot more attractive.”

Dan Kurzrock, the 27-year-old co-founder of San Francisco start-up ReGrained, suspected that from the start. As a college home-brewer, making beer in his garage, Kurzrock noticed that a whole lot of nutritionally valuable “spent grain,” mostly barley, gets thrown out.

Kurzrock and his business partner, Jordan Schwartz, spent the next five years testing possible uses for it. In 2016, they launched a line of snack bars made from almonds, oats, quinoa and grains from urban brewers.

“We’re a food business with an environmental and social mission,” Kurzrock said. Reconciling the two has been a challenge.

“Our business is about tackling waste — but how do we do that without grossing people out?” He asked. “That’s been part of the complication of dealing with this issue.”

In Providence, Rhode Island, 55-year-old Erika Lamb has seen similar trends. Her year-old startup, SecondsFirst, sells fish cakes made from “ugly” produce and “under-appreciated” seafood, like skate wing and dogfish. Lamb, who had volunteered with a local agriculture group, was surprised by the amount of produce farmers plowed into the ground or fed to pigs, given increasing consumer demand for healthy, local food. For solutions, she turned to a classic New England recipe — which she now sells to nursing homes, soup kitchens and schools.

“For university students especially, it’s a big draw to use food waste now,” Lamb said. She’s already looking toward expanding into the retail market.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Americans threw away 38 million tons of food in 2014 alone — much of it unbought, unmarketable or unharvested food that was still perfectly edible.