From: Vojtech Vosecky <vojtech@circulareconomist.org> Date: June 24, 2025 at 5:53:19 AM EDT To: Dr Raf� <stars2man@yahoo.com> Subject:♻️ Fighting waste with... cookies?
Maybe you noticed that I didn't send The Loop over this weekend. For the first time in 10 months!
Well, the thing is - June has been incredibly busy, both personally and professionally.
Just when I got back from my keynote at the Green Transition Forum last Wednesday, my friends with small kids arrived to visit us for several days.
On Thursday morning, we packed our bags and went out camping and celebrating the Swedish Midsummer.
We took our kids and slept on an island in a Swedish West Coast archipelago! This is how bright it is here at around midnight.
We had a wonderful time, but there was not a single second to get this edition across the finish line.
So, with a few days' delay, I am happy to bring you a circular champion, who's tackling the food waste from the ground up. You've probably heard it before - almost 40% of food we produce globally is never eaten.
In farms, factories, and supply chains, edible parts of crops are thrown away simply because no one knows what to do with them.
The next wave of circularity isn't only about composting leftovers. It's about seeing value in materials where others see trash.
Or upgrading byproducts into premium ingredients. And our today's company is already doing just that.
Founded in 2016, Renewal Mill is a US-based 🇺🇸 enterprise and a pioneer of food upcyling. They turn byproducts from food manufacturing into high-value ingredients and snacks.
Their mission is to keep nutritious parts of crops in the system - not in the bin.
A few stats:
💸 Annual revenue: ~ $750,000 👩💼 Team: ~10 employees 💰 Capital raised: $3.2 million 🥣 Products: 10+ (flours, baking mixes, cookies) 🌍 Retail & foodservice presence: 1,000+ locations across the U.S.
Their secret sauce? A tech-enabled model that scales food rescue and makes it tasty.
Its flagship ingredient is organic okara flour, followed by a line of premium upcycled flours and ingredients.These ingredients serve as the base for Renewal Mill's own consumer product line, including baking mixes and ready-to-eat cookies
Byproducts as missed opportunities
80,000 kilograms of food is being wasted around the world, every single second.
We trash enough to comfortably feed 2 billion people around the globe.
It's not just about guilt or hunger. Food waste also means wasted water, land, energy, and carbon budgets.
Almost 1/4 of all the food wasted are crops. Here's how it hits them specifically:
🌱 Soy – After making soymilk or tofu, okara (soy pulp) is left behind. It's packed with fiber and protein, but usually dumped or used as low-value animal feed.
🌾 Oats – The oat milk boom generates tons of pulp that often ends up as waste, despite being nutrient-rich.
🌽 Corn – Milling leaves behind husks and germ, with huge potential for upcycling.
🍌 Bananas – Overripe or "imperfect" bananas are trashed at massive scale, though perfectly edible.
🍍 Pineapples – Skins and cores are discarded, though they contain enzymes and fiber useful in other products.
All these byproducts are nutritious, valuable, and often overlooked.
Until now.
How Renewal Mill bakes a change
Renewal Mill is building an entire supply chain for food byproducts.
Here's how their circular model works:
Sourcing: They partner with plant-based food producers (e.g. soymilk companies) to collect their leftover pulp, like okara.
Upcycling & processing: They dry and mill this pulp into ultra-fine, shelf-stable flour - high in fiber and protein.
Product development: They sell this flour to food manufacturers (B2B) and also create their own branded products like cookies and baking mixes (B2C).
Retail & partnerships: Their products are available in grocery stores, cafes, and e-commerce. They collaborate with brands like Salt & Straw and Miyoko's Creamery.
By treating food waste as a resource, Renewal Mill shows how to close the loop in food production – a key principle of circular economy.
Renewal Mill reports that its okara flour carries roughly 40% of the carbon footprint of traditional all-purpose wheat flour, thanks to the emissions saved by diverting soy pulp from landfill.
Their impact so far:
✅ Diverted hundreds of tons of okara from the landfill
✅ Saved millions of liters of water
✅ Prevented CO₂ equivalent emissions in the thousands of kg
✅ Built a replicable model for upcycling in the food sector
They're not just recycling food, they're rewriting the recipe for food systems.
What's next?
Food waste is a trillion-dollar problem. Upcycling is a billion-dollar opportunity.
But scaling it will take more than a few passionate businesses.
We need:
--> Tech to integrate byproduct sourcing into supply chains.
--> Food safety standards and labeling that support upcycled ingredients
--> Policy incentives for food processors to valorize, not dump
--> Consumer education that makes "waste-based" food cool
SMEs like Renewal Mill show what's possible. But the real breakthrough comes when circularity becomes the norm, not the niche.
It's time to stop tossing food value. Let's bake it back in.
If you are turning 'waste' products into something new, have job openings, or have an upcoming event, I'd love to feature your work. Get in touch here.
That's it for this week, see ya next Saturday!
Vojta PS: Please don't forget to leave feedback on this new edition!
