These sustainable brands are making it easy to spread the love with upcycled sweets this Valentine’s Day. The newest trend for the conscious food consumer, upcycled sweets keep food waste at bay while simultaneously delighting that sweet tooth.
Sweet Upcycled Treats for Both You and the Planet – Food & Beverage Magazine
Recognized by Whole Foods as a 2023 top food trend, upcycled food consumption is growing in popularity. The upcycled food movement promotes foods that are made with ingredients that otherwise would have gone to waste. Through the Upcycled CertifiedTM Program 496,103 tons of food waste is diverted annually. Second-chance ingredients like cacao fruit, green bananas, oat pulp, spent barley, and soy byproduct can give way to serendipitously satisfying upcycled treats. Enter upcycled cookies, candy, cakes, and more.
These Upcycled CertifiedTM creations are changing the game when it comes to tackling food waste. Sweet ingredients can be stretched farther and fibrous waste can be made sweet—all while often offering a nutritional lift. These treats will be sure to love you back during this season of love.
FAVES
“Perfectly imperfect” fruits and vegetables find new purpose as Climate Candy. Unwanted but completely edible produce is dehydrated, sweetened, and transformed into a nostalgically chewy fruit candy that leans into its natural sugars and fruity flavors.
Dark Chocolate; Milk Chocolate; Sea Salt Milk Chocolate; Coffee Milk Chocolate; Orange Dark Chocolate
Supplant is dedicated to using the entire plant in their products. By gathering and processing fiber-rich agricultural byproducts (like corn husks, stalks, stems, and cobs), their technology creates “sugars from fiber.” Those sugars end up in a better-for-you chocolate bar approved by Chef Thomas Keller.
Whole Cacao Chocolate Bar; Hazelnut Covered Cacao Beans; Dark Chocolate Covered Cacao Beans
Traditional chocolate production wastes 70 percent of the cacao pod—Blue Stripes wants to change that. Their clever chocolate confections utilize the entire cacao pod: shell, fruit, and beans. The result? Not your grandmother’s chocolate bar.
Simple Truth
Plant-based Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix; Plant-based Sugar Cookie Mix; Plant-based Brownie Mix
Okara flour powers these spruced-up baker’s pantry staples. Okara is a nutrient-rich pulp byproduct of tofu and soymilk production. Remarkably, the prepared cookies are a seamless substitute for the cult classics—crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, and sweet, as promised.
Upcycled Vanilla Oatmilk Cookies; Upcycled Chocolate Chip Cookies; Upcycled Double Chocolate Chip Cookies
These fancy cookies have their respective fancy flours to thank: they’re made from oat milk waste, Okara, and coffee cherries (the fruity pulp that surrounds coffee beans.) These players pack much-welcome fiber, protein, and vitamins into a sweet and crispy, snackable treat.
Brownie Beast Brownie Cookie Dough
This ready-to-eat cookie dough is for snacking or baking. Partnering with ReGrained, Doughp uses their upcycled Supergrain+ blend. It winds up checking all the boxes: rich, chocolatey, and sustainable with a nutritional boost.
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Banana Babies; Banana Bites
Diana’s saves viable bananas from the scrap pile by using bananas with superficial blemishes or imperfect shape. Their chocolate-covered bananas are frozen at peak freshness, and the final product boasts a quality that is far from compromised. It’s a win-win.
