Circular, Regenerative Innovations Advance in Big Food Redesign Challenge

A new generation of food products designed to increase circularity and
regenerate the planet are one step closer to reaching supermarket shelves after
being invited to the next stage of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Big
Food Redesign
Challenge.

Pasta made from wrinkled peas, a snack using banana peel, and both cookies and
juice produced from cacti are among the innovative concepts received from
companies ranging from startups to household names including
Danone and Nestlé.

The Challenge, launched last
year
by the Foundation in partnership with the Sustainable Food
Trust, tasked participants to design new
products — or redesign existing ones — using circular-economy
principles that
help nature to thrive and address climate change.

From a total of 400 applications received worldwide — including from Africa,
Europe, Latin
America,
the UK and US — more than 160 products are now being supported in
developing their first designs.

As selected products enter the production phase of the Challenge, the Foundation
is calling on retailers to join its partners — leading British supermarket
Waitrose and major retail group Grupo Carrefour
Brasil — in
showcasing food items as early as this year.

“Our current food system is a key driver of biodiversity loss and accounts for a
third of global greenhouse gases — we can, and must, redesign our food to
regenerate
nature
and tackle some of the most pressing global issues facing us today,” asserts
Beth Mander, Food Program
Manager at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. “It’s encouraging to see such a huge
appetite by businesses to rise to the challenge of helping to reshape how we
design food for the future. With such an innovative range of product ideas, we
hope they will become everyday items on shopping lists.

“This is an exciting time for more retailers to get involved and be among the
first in the world to offer their customers unique access to food choices which
help preserve and restore our planet for future generations.”

Advancing innovations

Among the UK innovators joining the next phase of the Challenge are
Hodmedod’s — whose selection of pasta, soups and
dahl is sourced from a type of broad bean and other diverse, arable
crops
grown with regenerative practices that help build soil health; Toast Brewing —
which upcycles surplus loaves of bread into
beer
and recently received a major cash infusion from
Heineken;
luxury London retailer Fortnum & Mason’s in-house distilled Amalthea
Dry Gin — which
has diversified its source crop by swapping grains with homegrown apples; and
Old Farmhouse Brewery’s beer made from
kelp
locally sourced from Wales’ first community-owned regenerative ocean farm.

Danone’s entry is a new yogurt range for the UK & Ireland markets made from over
90 percent regeneratively farmed milk. Another better-dairy entry is from
Golden Hooves, a UK-based subsidiary of the
regenerative First Milk cooperative, whose
butter and cheese contain ingredients sourced from farmers that are all
committed to regenerative practices.

Kenya-based Dunia Bora
advances to the next phase of the Challenge with its use of cacti — the company
is farming what is traditionally considered an invasive plant, using
regenerative practices in the country’s arid and semi-arid regions, and turning
it into both a vegan
leather
and an ingredient in cookies and juice.

Submissions from US-based companies include Wildway — which uses both banana
and its peel in its Grain-Free
Granola
to increase its nutritional value and reduce waste; and a plant-based take on
traditional jerky by 4 Fungi’s Regenerative made
from mushrooms; Upcycled Foods Inc (aka
Regrained),
which upcycles byproducts such as spent brewers’ grain into nutritious food
ingredients; and snacks from GoodSam Foods, made
with regeneratively farmed
cocoa
from Colombia.

The Foundation launched the Big Food Redesign Challenge with support from funds
raised by players of People’s Postcode Lottery and awarded through the
Dream Fund, the Schmidt Family Foundation, and the Gordon and Betty
Moore Foundation.

Next phase: Retail

The next phase of the Challenge will involve bringing products to market with
the help of retailers. Retailers are invited to find out how they can get
involved in stocking nature-positive products by contacting
[email protected].