The apparel industry has done it — turned waste to wealth through recycling, upcycling and transforming old clothes into new fibres or creating designer wear from discarded material. Can the food industry similarly valorise waste to create value?
A lot of work is already on in the area, says Rinka Banerjee, Founder and Director of Thinking Forks, a food tech consultancy, who feels passionately about the subject and is advising companies and start-ups in this space.
“In India, probably 40 per cent of the food we produce is either lost or wasted,” says Banerjee, who feels there is a wealth of opportunity for brands here to do something about it. Byproduct brands are already creating waves in some countries.
She points to Dole Specialty Ingredients, a company in Singapore that develops and markets enzymes, oils and fibres from upcycled fruit waste. Thinking Forks advises the food ingredients company, which has a lot of fruit waste.
“So they’ve got banana farms and pineapple farms where, even after processing, there is a lot of waste. For instance, the peel from a banana is usually thrown away. But there’s a lot of fibre sitting there and we did a lot of work with the food technology institute in Mysore. We created that into banana fibre. Today, a lot of that is going back into the food industry. And some of it is going into the textile industry.”
Banana fibre powder and pineapple fibre powder, she says, is used by biscuit and cereal companies.
Thinking Forks is also advising a Singapore-based company on seafood waste, to see what can be generated from that.
“In seafood, there is a lot of waste — such as scales, head, etc — from which a lot of value can be extracted,” says Banerjee. Fish oil rich in Omega 3, for instance, is a product from seafood waste.
“It’s early days of conversation in countries like India, but it’s extremely important,” she says, pointing out that there are a lot of ways in which start-ups can think about reducing food waste.
Take, for instance, GreenPod Labs in Chennai, an agri-tech startup that uses natural plant extracts to extend the shelf life of fruits and vegetables.
Another innovative company is the Bengaluru-based Saving Grains, which uses spent grains from the brewery industry to make granola and crackers.
Spent grain has great flavour, fibre and nutrition, which Saving Grains uses imaginatively.
Similarly, Jaipur-based company The Misfits creates upcycled dips, spreads and jams from imperfect fruit and vegetables.
Banerjee says she is part of the Coalition for Food Systems Transformation in India, a diverse alliance of stakeholders who are working to create a more equitable, sustainable and healthy food system in India.
“We have different action labs. One of the action labs is around food loss and food waste,” she says.
The technology is already available, as also an abundance of raw material — food waste. Now it just needs a brand with the enterprise and green thinking to take it up.
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Published on October 20, 2025