Upcycling turns would-be trash into ice cream, pizza
LOS GATOS, Calif. – At Tyler Malek’s ice cream parlors, one cook’s trash is another chef ’s frosty treat.
The head ice cream maker at the Portland, Oregon-based Salt & Straw uses the whey leftover from yogurt makers in upstate New York to make his lemon curd flavor. For chocolate barley milk, he mixes in the remnants of rice and grains from beer brewing to give it a light and creamy taste.
“Instead of calling this food waste, we need to call it wasted food and start decreasing how much wasting we’re doing,” Malek said.
Malek’s ice cream chain is among those at the forefront of the upcycling movement, the process of creating high-quality products from leftover food. Malek’s shops from the Pacific Northwest to Miami now feature flavors like “Cacao Pulp & Chocolate Stracciatella Gelato,” which is made from leftover cacao pulp from chocolate production that otherwise would have gone to waste.
It’s a trend gaining ground as consumers spend more time reading packaging labels and menu ingredients to learn where their food comes from and how it affects the environment. More than 35 million tons of food are wasted every year in the U.S. – about 40% of the country’s food production – costing the national economy more than $200 billion, according to the Upcycled Food Association.
Upcycled food is becoming increasingly common in cake mixes and veggie chips at natural grocery stores. Ingredients include fruits and vegetables from farms nationwide that are perfectly edible but often rejected by restaurants and grocery stores because of their shape or color, like white strawberries, wilted greens and ugly mushrooms.
The Upcycled Food Association, which celebrates World Upcycling Day on June 24, issues an official “Upcycling Certified” seal to qualifying products. These seals, which adorn the new Salt &