Discover the ideas, people, and practices growing a healthier food future.

The Cocopopification of Food (and Why Fighting the Industry Won’t Fix It)

Clean ingredients that sound natural - and why that suddenly matters again

Fork From Farm: Designing Food Around What People Need

Feeding the next phase of food: What GLP-1s reveal about nutrition, not medication

The Fibre Factor: Why “eat more fibre” won’t scale unless we change how food is made

Why low-friction reformulation is now a strategic imperative for food producers

Yuka: The reformulation pressure food producers didn’t vote for (and why UPP is built for it)

Clean ingredients that sound natural - and why that suddenly matters again

TheThe most advanced taste tool we have is still a Chef Co

If people won’t change their diet to save their lives, why would they change it to save the planet?

A World Without Cows: What happens when we optimise the wrong variable?

Upcycling as Infrastructure: Why UPP Joined the Upcycled Food Association

Ingredient stacking: the fastest route to lower-carbon food that still tastes like food

Smart hybridisation: How to scale impact before you scale volume

Europe after peak: why the next era of food is about nutrition density, not volumeThe

The system isn’t broken. It’s optimised.

Make Sustainability a By-Product of Efficiency: How Smarter Food Systems Outpace Traditional “Green” Narratives

The healthcare system is paying for poor diet. The food system has to become part of the fix.

The question isn’t whether inulin works. It’s whether it still fits the moment.

War doesn’t make alternative protein more important. It makes its purpose clearer.

Permacrisis is not the problem. Building for it is the answer.

Automate the harvest. Lower the fertiliser. Rebuild the rotation.

Balanced Proteins: Quiet Scale Beats Loud Disruption

The next era of food. The work happens upstream.

Less than £1 for the food. The school meal is now a system design problem.

What 70 alternative-protein casualties tell us about the next era of food.

The Cocopopification of Food (and Why Fighting the Industry Won’t Fix It)

There’s a feeling many consumers share, even if they don’t have the words for it. Food has become… cartoonish. Too sweet. Too smooth. Too engineered. Too loud. Too moreish. Too far from anything you’d recognise in a kitchen.

It’s the "cocopopification" of food: products designed to be hyper-palatable, hyper-convenient, and hyper-repeatable — optimised less for nourishment and more for throughput.

And it’s triggered a backlash.

The book Ultra-Processed People didn’t create the concern — it simply gave it a clear narrative:: "something about the modern diet feels wrong." And people aren’t imagining it.

Should we only eat unprocessed food? No.

That idea sounds clean, but it collapses the moment it meets reality.

Because “only unprocessed” assumes a world where everyone has:

• time to cook from scratch every day

• stable income and access to fresh ingredients

• predictable schedules

• equipment, skills, and energy

• low stress and high capacity

That is not most people’s life.

It’s not how modern societies work.

Processed food exists for a reason: it made food safer, cheaper, more available, more stable, and more consistent. It reduced hunger. It extended shelf life. It supported working households. It enabled scale.

The mistake isn’t that food is processed.

The mistake is that processing became a proxy for quality.
And then the system got too good at optimising for the wrong thing.

Should we have better food?

Definitely. But “better” doesn’t mean nostalgic.
It means upgraded.

Better food is food that fits modern life and delivers what bodies actually need:

• more nutrition density

• more fibre

• better satiety

• fewer empty calories

• fewer unnecessary functional crutches

• ingredients that behave like food, not chemistry

Better food is not a return to the past.

It’s a redesign of the default.

Can we get there without working with the industry?

Impossible.

Because the industry is the system.

And the system is how food reaches people.

It’s easy to imagine that the solution is to “beat Big Food” — to replace it, shame it, regulate it into submission, or boycott it into collapse.

But that approach misunderstands something important:

food at scale doesn’t change through moral pressure alone.

It changes through supply chains, specifications, manufacturing realities, retailer requirements, cost constraints, and consumer repeat purchase.

It changes when the people inside the system have better tools.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth: The people inside the industry eat the same food we do.

They are not a separate species. They are parents buying dinner. They are commuters grabbing lunch. They are shoppers managing budgets. They are humans with the same constraints and cravings.

The idea that the industry is a villain, and consumers are the victims, makes for a satisfying story. But it doesn’t build a better food environment.

The story of modern food is also the story of progress

Look at the UK over the last century.

From 1900 through to around 2011, life expectancy rose markedly — with temporary shocks during wars and pandemics. Multiple forces drove that improvement: public health measures, medical advances, and better living conditions.

But food played a role too.

• Improved food security.

• More reliable calories.

• More consistent nutrition.

• Less seasonal hunger.

• Safer supply.

The system delivered.

And that matters, because it’s easy to criticise the modern food environment without acknowledging what it replaced.

But now the optimisation target has shifted.

The problem today isn’t scarcity.

It’s abundance — in the wrong direction.

And more recently, rising obesity and chronic disease risk linked to diet and inactivity threaten to slow progress, especially in healthy life expectancy.

So if we want continued gains, something has to change.

Not in theory.

In the everyday food environment people actually live in.

The modern food environment is shaping outcomes by default

Most people don’t fail at nutrition because they lack willpower.

They fail because the environment is doing what it was designed to do:

• cheap calories are everywhere

• ultra-convenient formats dominate

• products are engineered for repeat purchase

• the easiest option is rarely the best one

• “healthier” often costs more or tastes worse

So the system produces predictable outcomes.

And then we blame individuals for responding normally.

That’s not a health strategy.

That’s a design failure.

The solution isn’t to reject the system. It’s to transform it.

If you want a healthier population, you need healthier defaults.

Not niche alternatives for the already motivated.

That means changing what happens inside the categories people already buy:

• ready meals

• sauces

• bakery

• snacks

• kids’ food

• everyday staples

It means improving the inputs, not just preaching about the outputs. And it means working with manufacturers — because manufacturers control the levers of scale:

• formulation

• cost-in-use

• texture and taste

• shelf life

• labelling

• procurement

• production realities

This is not glamorous work. But it’s the only work that scales.

A new goal: keep the convenience, upgrade the nutrition

The future isn’t “everyone eats whole foods all the time.”

The future is that the convenient foods people already rely on become:

• more nutritious

• less empty

• less dependent on ultra-processing tricks

• more aligned with long-term health

Not through disruption.

Through upgrade paths.

Small improvements repeated across high-volume products become population-level change.

That’s the game.

What we’re doing at UPP

At UPP, we’re not trying to tear the system down.

We’re trying to make it better at what it already does: feed people at scale.

That means working upstream - turning under-utilised vegetables into functional ingredients that can be used in real manufacturing to improve food from the inside out.

Not as a “health product.”

Not as a premium niche.

As an ingredient-level upgrade that fits the realities of modern food:

• affordability

• safety

• scale

• consistency

• compatibility

Because beating the industry isn’t the answer.

Helping the system transform is the answer.

And that is what we are doing.

Closing thought

The cocopopification of food didn’t happen by accident.

It happened because the system was optimised for what it was rewarded for.

Now the rewards are changing.

And if we want the next century of progress - not just in life expectancy, but in healthy life expectancy - we need the modern food environment to change too.

Not by wishing processing away.

But by making processed food worthy of the role it plays.

The Cocopopification of Food (and Why Fighting the Industry Won’t Fix It)

Clean ingredients that sound natural - and why that suddenly matters again

For years, the food industry has treated “clean label” as a marketing problem.

• Remove an E-number.

• Use "store cupboard ingredients"

• Reduce the length of ingredient declarations on back of pack.

What’s changed recently is not the existence of processed food - it’s the level of public scrutiny around how food is processed, why, and whether the trade-offs are still justified. The debate has re-entered the mainstream.

From Joe Wicks: Food for Fitness to the success of Chris van Tulleken’s “Ultra-Processed People”, consumers are being exposed - often for the first time - to the idea that not all processing is equal, and that formulation decisions made far upstream can shape health, trust, and perception downstream.

For food producers, this creates a familiar tension.

• The system still needs processed food.

• Scale still requires consistency, safety, and shelf life.

• Cost pressure has not gone away.

But the tolerance for ingredients that sound synthetic, opaque, or unnecessary is narrowing. And that matters — not because of ideology, but because perception now influences risk.

The quiet return of ingredient scrutiny

What’s striking about the current moment is how little it resembles previous “clean eating” cycles. This is not about superfoods or exclusion diets.

It is about processing logic.

Both the documentary and the book focus less on individual nutrients, and more on the architecture of modern food: fractionation, recombination, texture engineering, and the substitution of whole-food function with isolated additives.

That framing resonates because it aligns with something food manufacturers already know internally: Many formulation decisions were made to solve industrial constraints - not nutritional ones.

Those decisions made sense at the time. But some of their side-effects are now visible to consumers in a way they weren’t before.

Why “natural-sounding” ingredients are not about optics

There’s a temptation to treat this moment as a communications challenge.

Change the language.

Control the narrative.

Re-educate the consumer.

That approach misses the point.

What consumers are responding to is not branding — it’s credibility. Ingredients that sound natural tend to share three characteristics:

They originate from recognisable crops or processes

• They perform multiple functions, rather than replacing each one with a separate additive

• They can be explained without a chemistry lesson

This is not nostalgia. It’s cognitive load. When ingredient lists become shorter and more intuitive, trust increases - even if the product remains processed.

Processing is not the enemy - fragmentation is

One of the most unhelpful conclusions drawn from the “ultra-processed” debate is that processing itself is the problem. It isn’t.

Processing is what allows food to be safe, affordable, and widely available.

The issue is how fragmented processing has become.

Over time, many foods have been deconstructed into ever more specialised inputs -stabilisers, emulsifiers, texturisers, isolates - each solving a narrow technical problem, often sourced from different global supply chains. The result is food that works industrially, but looks and feels increasingly abstract to the people eating it.

Reversing that trend does not require abandoning processing. It requires re-integrating function.

When one ingredient can do the work of many

From a formulation perspective, the most powerful ingredients today are not the most novel. They are the ones that:

• deliver protein, fibre, and functionality together

• replace multiple additives with a single crop-derived input

• integrate into existing processes without re-engineering lines

• arrive with procurement-grade traceability and allergen clarity

This is where “clean” stops being about purity and starts being about efficiency - fewer ingredients, fewer suppliers, fewer explanations.

For manufacturers under pressure to reduce cost, risk, and Scope 3 emissions simultaneously, this matters more than philosophy.

Clean labels as a by-product of better system design

The most scalable changes in food rarely happen because consumers demand them explicitly. They happen because producers redesign systems in ways that quietly remove friction.

When ingredients are:

• derived from familiar crops

• processed through transparent, auditable systems

• supplied regionally rather than globally

• used to replace several additives at once

the label improves as a side-effect.

Not because anyone set out to chase a claim — but because the system became simpler.

That distinction is important.

Why this matters now - commercially, not culturally

The current focus on ultra-processing will not last forever. But its effects on risk perception, retailer scrutiny, and regulatory attention already matter. For food producers, the question is not whether to respond – it is how.

High-friction reformulation in response to public pressure often creates more problems than it solves.

Low-friction reformulation - using ingredients that behave like food, sound like food, and come from food - creates optionality.

It allows producers to:

• simplify labels without compromising performance

• reduce additive dependency without redesigning factories

• respond to current media pressure without chasing trends

• future-proof portfolios against shifting definitions of “acceptable” processing

That is not a consumer strategy. It is a resilience strategy.

Closing thought: familiarity scales faster than novelty

The food system does not need to swing from hyper-processed to idealised whole foods. It needs better integration between agriculture, processing, and formulation - so that ingredients once again look and feel like they belong in food.

In a world where scrutiny is rising but tolerance for disruption is low, the safest path forward is not to fight processing - but to make it quieter, simpler, and easier to explain.

Clean ingredients that sound natural are not about going backwards. They are about rebuilding trust - one formulation decision at a time.

Read more here.

Fork From Farm: Designing Food Around What People Need

Grow it. Process it. Package it. Sell it. Eat it.

It’s a neat story. It sounds logical. It sounds efficient.

But it hides a fundamental flaw:

It starts in the wrong place.

Because the farm doesn’t exist to express its own potential. It exists to feed people. And people don’t buy crops.

• They buy outcomes.

• They buy dinner.

• They buy convenience.

• They buy familiarity.

• They buy nutrition (even when they don’t call it that).

• They buy something that fits their life, their budget, and their taste expectations.

So if we want to build a better food system, we need to invert the logic.

Not farm to fork...Fork from farm.

Start with what people need — then work backwards.

The fork is the specification

In most industries, product design begins with the user.

Food is one of the few sectors where we often pretend the opposite is true.

We treat supply as destiny:

“This is what we grow.”

“This is what we harvest.”

“This is what we can process.”

“So this is what people will eat.”

But consumers don’t eat what exists....They eat what works.

And “works” is a demanding brief:

• it has to taste good

• it has to feel right

• it has to be affordable

• it has to fit into habits

• it has to be safe

• it has to be available consistently

• it has to deliver real nutrition in familiar formats

That’s the fork...That’s the spec.

And when you start there, you stop building food systems around what’s easiest to produce — and start building them around what’s actually needed.

The real problem isn’t waste. It’s under-utilisation.

Waste is usually framed as a moral failure.

Something is thrown away. Something is “lost.” Something is “not valued.”

But that framing misses the point.

In modern food systems, waste is often just a symptom of something more structural: We’ve built supply chains that can’t fully use what already exists.

Not because the material isn’t good. But because it doesn’t fit the system:

• wrong format

• wrong size

• wrong spec

• wrong shelf-life

• wrong processing behaviour

• wrong economics

• wrong route to market

The issue isn’t that food is wasted....It’s that it’s not engineered into value. And that’s a solvable problem.

At UPP, we focus on a different question: How do we fully utilise what we already grow — and turn more of it into food people actually want to eat?

Not as a side project.

As the core design principle.

Fork from farm changes the optimisation target

Most food systems have been optimised around three things: cost, safety, and scale.

That optimisation delivered real progress.

It made food affordable. It made food safe. It made food reliable.

But now the brief has expanded.

The system is being asked to deliver more:

• higher nutrition density

• more resilience

• more supply security

• more efficiency

• more stable economics for farmers

• and fewer trade-offs

The old approach tries to solve this by adding more complexity.

New ingredients. New supply chains. New consumer behaviours. New formats.

But complexity doesn’t scale cleanly in food.

The better approach is to upgrade the system we already have.

And that starts by rethinking directionality.

What happens when you build backwards from the consumer?

When you design from the fork backwards, three things become possible at once.

1) National food security improves: Food security isn’t just about growing more. It’s about converting more of what we already grow into stable, saleable, nutritious food. If a country can take a higher percentage of its domestic crops and turn them into:

consistent ingredients

• predictable inputs for manufacturing

• scalable products people actually buy

• …then the system becomes less exposed to shocks.

• Less dependency.

• Less volatility.

• More resilience.

Food security is often treated as a geopolitical issue. But a lot of it is simply an engineering issue: How efficiently can you convert what exists into food that fits demand?

2) Consumers get more nutritious food - without needing to change:. There’s a persistent myth in food innovation that better nutrition requires better behaviour. That if we want healthier outcomes, consumers need to:

• cook more

• read labels

• change habits

• “make better choices”

Sometimes they will. But at population scale, behaviour change is a weak lever.

The high-impact route is the opposite: Keep the products. Upgrade the inputs.

That means nutrition delivered through the formats people already buy and trust.

• More fibre.

• More micronutrients.

• More functionality from real ingredients.

Not as a new category. As an upgrade path.

That’s how change compounds.

3) Farmers become more financially sustainable. Farm economics don’t collapse because farmers aren’t productive. They collapse because value capture is thin - and too much of what’s grown is trapped in low-value channels. When utilisation is low, margin disappears into:

• grading and rejection

• price compression

• commodity exposure

• limited end markets

• low flexibility in what can be sold

But when you can convert more of what is grown into ingredients that manufacturers can actually use - at scale - something shifts.

The farmer stops being a price-taker for a narrow output.

And starts being part of a system that creates value from a broader slice of the crop.

That’s not charity.

That’s better system design.

This is what UPP is building: utilisation as a strategy

At UPP, we don’t see ourselves as a “waste solution.”

Waste is the headline.

Utilisation is the mechanism.

We take vegetables that are under-utilised — not because they’re undesirable, but because they’re hard to integrate — and we turn them into ingredients that work inside real manufacturing.

That means designing for:

• spec consistency

• supply reliability

• manufacturability

• nutritional value

• compatibility with existing formats

• and commercial reality

Not reinvention. Upgrade.

Because the system doesn’t need a lecture. It needs tools.

A better question than “what are we wasting?”

The traditional sustainability conversation starts with guilt: “How much are we wasting?”

The better conversation starts with design: "How much of what we already grow can we turn into food that people actually need?"

That shift matters.

Because it doesn’t just reduce waste. It increases:

• food security

• nutrition access

• farm resilience

• manufacturing efficiency

• and the ability to scale change without breaking the system

That’s fork from farm.

Not a slogan.

A direction of travel that actually works. And that is what we at UPP are delivering.

Feeding the next phase of food: What GLP-1s reveal about nutrition, not medication

GLP-1 medications are changing how people eat - whether the food system is ready or not. Drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy are often discussed through the lens of weight loss or healthcare costs. But from a food systems perspective, they reveal something more fundamental: how poorly aligned much of today’s food supply is with the way people actually need to eat.

• Reduced appetite.

• Smaller portions.

• Higher sensitivity to texture and satiety.

When people eat less, what they eat matters more.

This isn’t a niche issue. As GLP-1 use expands - and as many consumers eventually taper or come off medication - the demand for foods that are nutrient-dense, gentle on digestion, and affordable will only grow.

The opportunity is not to medicalise food.

It is to make food do its job better.

Smaller meals expose a big problem

For decades, food formulation has optimised for:

• volume

• palatability

• cost per calorie

That model works when consumption is high. It breaks down when it isn’t.

When people eat smaller portions - whether due to GLP-1s, ageing populations, or shifting health priorities - foods that are:

• low in fibre

• low in protein

• highly fractionated

• nutritionally diluted

stop making sense.

The next phase of consumer food is not about eating less food. It is about eating more nutrition per bite.

Broccoli is a nutritional outlier - not a trend ingredient

• Broccoli is not fashionable.

• It is not novel.

• It does not need a story.

It is, however, unusually dense in:

• fibre

• protein (relative to vegetables)

• micronutrients

• bioactive compounds

And yet, a significant proportion of the broccoli grown in Europe and the UK never enters the food system at all.

Leaves, stems, and surplus florets are routinely left in fields or diverted to low-value pathways - not because they lack nutrition, but because the system is not designed to use them. That is where opportunity lives.

Nutrition density without asking consumers to “try harder”

One of the persistent mistakes in food innovation is assuming that better nutrition requires:

• behaviour change

• premium pricing

• unfamiliar ingredients

In reality, most consumers — including those on or coming off GLP-1 medication — want food that is:

• familiar

• affordable

• easy to tolerate

• quietly more nutritious

Broccoli-derived ingredients offer exactly that.

When converted into functional protein and fibre ingredients, they can:

• increase satiety in smaller portions

• support digestive tolerance

• deliver nutrition without heaviness

• integrate into existing food formats

No new habits required.

Coming off GLP-1s: where food matters most

Much of the public conversation focuses on starting GLP-1s. Less attention is paid to what happens after.

As people reduce or discontinue medication, food becomes the primary stabilising force:

• maintaining satiety

• supporting metabolic health

• preventing rebound through nutrition, not restriction

This is where nutrient density beats calorie control. Foods that deliver protein and fibre together - in familiar, everyday formats - help bridge the gap between medical intervention and long-term eating patterns.

Not as “diet food”.

As better food.

Why affordability determines whether this scales

Nutrition that only works at a premium price point doesn’t scale.

At UPP, our focus is not on extracting novelty from broccoli - it is on extracting value from what is already grown and wasted.

By using under-utilised broccoli biomass:

• farmers gain a new income stream

• ingredients are lower cost than many imported alternatives

• manufacturers improve margins rather than sacrificing them

• consumers access better nutrition without paying more

That matters — because GLP-1 use is not limited to affluent consumers, and neither is the need for nutritious food.

System change, not product theatre

The most important shift here is upstream.

Instead of designing products around consumer willpower, the system can:

• reformulate existing foods to be more nutrient-dense

• improve satiety without increasing portion size

• reduce reliance on globally sourced isolates

• quietly align food with emerging consumption patterns

This is low-friction change — the kind that actually reaches scale.

Broccoli as infrastructure, not a hero ingredient

UPP does not position broccoli as a superfood or a solution in isolation. We treat it as infrastructure:

• a crop already grown at scale

• with nutrition already proven

• currently under-utilised due to system inefficiency

By turning wasted broccoli into functional food ingredients, we connect:

• agriculture

• processing

• formulation

• and health outcomes

Without asking consumers to think about any of it.

A food system ready for what’s next

GLP-1s didn’t create the need for better food. They exposed it.

As people eat less - by choice, by health, or by circumstance — the food system has to respond with:

• higher nutritional yield

• better use of what we already grow

• and economics that work for everyone involved

Broccoli isn’t the future because it’s new.

It’s the future because it’s already here — and we haven’t been using it properly.

• Better for farmers.

• Better for producers.

• Better for people.

• Better for the planet.

That’s not a dietary philosophy.

It’s a systems outcome.

Read more here.

The Fibre Factor: Why “eat more fibre” won’t scale unless we change how food is made

Fibre is having a moment.

Not in the way protein did - with a thousand new SKUs and a marketing arms race — but in a quieter, more structural way. It’s re-entering the mainstream conversation as something we’ve lost, something we need, and something modern diets are failing to deliver.

The BBC series The Fibre Factor (BBC Radio 4 - The Fibre Factor), presented by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, captures that shift well. Across five episodes - from Munching Plants to Manufacturing through to fibre fortification, beans, and “fibremaxxing” - it asks a simple question with uncomfortable implications:

If fibre is so foundational to health, why are we eating so little of it?

The answer isn’t ignorance. It’s system design.

We didn’t “forget” fibre. We engineered it out.

The first episode’s historical arc is useful because it reframes fibre not as a new discovery, but as a baseline that modern food quietly moved away from.

For most of human history, diets were structurally fibre-rich because they were built around whole plants: roots, leaves, seeds, legumes. Fibre wasn’t a target. It was a default.

Then industrialisation did what industrialisation always does: it optimised for throughput, shelf life, uniformity and cost. And in the process, fibre became collateral damage.

Refining grains removes bran. Fractionating plants separates function. Ultra-processing turns whole food architecture into inputs and additives.

Nobody set out to create a low-fibre world. It’s simply what happens when you optimise food for industrial efficiency without simultaneously optimising for nutritional outcomes.

“Fibremaxxing” is a signal — but behaviour change is still a weak lever

Episode 2 introduces “fibremaxxing”, the online trend pushing people to deliberately chase fibre targets the way they once chased protein.

That’s interesting - not because trends solve systemic problems, but because they reveal a rising demand for tools people can act on. The public is looking for a new anchor: not restriction, not purity, but something measurable that maps to health.

But even if fibremaxxing is here to stay, it won’t close the gap at population scale.

Most people won’t track fibre long-term. They won’t weigh beans, count grams, or redesign their meals every day. Not because they’re lazy, but because food decisions sit inside real constraints: time, budget, habit, family preferences, and what’s available. This is why behaviour change remains unreliable as a primary strategy.

If we want fibre intake to rise meaningfully, it has to happen upstream — through how everyday food is formulated.

The real question isn’t “can we eat more fibre?” It’s “can we build fibre back into defaults?”

Episode 3 goes directly to the core issue: the foods that dominate modern diets — bread, pasta, rice, packaged meals — are often fibre-poor by design. So the problem isn’t solved by telling people to eat like nutritionists.

It’s solved by improving the foods people already buy.

This is where the industry’s next phase becomes clear:

Can we fortify staples without compromising taste and texture?

Can ultra-processed foods ever become fibre-rich?

Can we do it without raising cost, breaking supply chains, or adding ingredient-list complexity?

These aren’t consumer questions. They’re manufacturing questions.

And they point to the same conclusion we keep coming back to: low-friction reformulation is the only approach that scales.

Because reformulation doesn’t fail due to lack of ambition. It fails due to friction: process disruption, sensory risk, procurement uncertainty, and complexity that slows decision-making.

Beans are the obvious answer — and the hardest one to mainstream

Episode 4 focuses on beans and pulses, and it’s hard to argue with the case: beans are fibre-rich, affordable, nutritionally dense, and comparatively low-impact.

They are also, in the UK at least, under-consumed outside a narrow set of formats (the baked bean exception is telling).

This is a classic example of a food that makes perfect sense on paper but struggles in practice. Not because beans are “bad”, but because the system around them isn’t built to make them effortless.

You can’t scale fibre by asking the whole population to suddenly love lentils.

You scale fibre by embedding it into familiar formats — the foods people already eat — without requiring a cultural conversion.

The future of fibre is not a new diet. It’s better formulation.

By the final episode, the series moves toward solutions: activism, education, cooking, and community-level change.

All of that matters. But the biggest lever still sits upstream.

If the UK is serious about addressing obesity and diet-related disease, fibre has to stop being a personal responsibility and start becoming a system outcome.

That means ingredients and processes that make it easier for manufacturers to:

• increase fibre content without wrecking sensory performance

• simplify formulations rather than “add another additive”

• keep products affordable

• work inside existing lines and supply chains

This is exactly why fibre is not just a nutrition story. It’s an ingredient infrastructure story.

At UPP, we think about fibre the same way we think about protein and sustainability: not as a claim, but as a design constraint. The question is never “how do we convince people to eat differently?”

It’s “how do we improve everyday food without asking people to try harder?”

Because when you change what goes into food — quietly, at scale — you change what comes out of the system.

And that’s how fibre stops being a trend, and becomes a default again.

Why low-friction reformulation is now a strategic imperative for food producers

For much of the past decade, reformulation has been framed as a question of innovation.

• New ingredients.

• New processes.

• New claims.

In practice, however, reformulation rarely fails because food producers lack ambition. It fails because it introduces too much friction into systems that are already under pressure.

Today’s manufacturers are balancing cost volatility, labour constraints, Scope 3 emissions targets, retailer scrutiny, and increasingly conservative capital environments - all while maintaining taste, texture, safety, and margin. In that context, the most valuable ingredient innovations are not those that promise transformation, but those that enable change without disruption.

Low-friction reformulation is no longer a “nice to have”. It is becoming a strategic requirement.

The hidden cost of reformulation friction

Every reformulation introduces risk - but not all risks are equal.

High-friction reformulation typically brings some combination of:

• changes to existing processing lines

• new allergen or regulatory complexity

• uncertain supply at scale

• unproven sensory performance

• additional approval cycles with retailers

Each one compounds internal cost and slows decision-making. Even when the sustainability case is strong, these frictions often stall progress long before products reach shelf.

This is why many reformulation programmes quietly revert to incremental tweaks, rather than the step-changes that sustainability, resilience, and cost pressures increasingly demand.

Why the industry’s constraints have changed

What’s different now is not consumer intent — it’s operating reality.

Food producers are operating in an environment where:

• ingredient volatility is structural, not cyclical

• labour availability is constraining agricultural and processing inputs

• Scope 3 accountability is shifting from aspiration to audit

• capital discipline matters more than speed

In this environment, reformulation strategies that rely on novel biology, bespoke infrastructure, or fragile supply chains are harder to justify - even if they are technically impressive. The winning strategies are those that reduce risk while delivering change.

Low-friction reformulation: what it actually means

Low-friction reformulation is not about avoiding innovation. It is about designing innovation around existing food systems, rather than asking food systems to adapt around innovation.

In practical terms, it means ingredients that:

• integrate into existing manufacturing processes with minimal modification

• behave predictably across standard unit operations (hydration, cooking, freezing, extrusion, etc.)

• arrive with procurement-grade documentation: traceability, allergen clarity, country of origin, and certification

• are available at meaningful scale from reliable, regionally anchored supply

• reduce environmental impact without introducing consumer unfamiliarity

This is not a compromise position. It is a deliberate strategy to unlock adoption at speed.

Why system-level thinking matters more than ingredient novelty

One of the consistent lessons across food innovation is that isolated optimisation creates downstream problems.

A low-carbon ingredient that requires a fragile supply chain creates operational risk.

A cost-effective input that introduces new allergens increases approval friction.

A novel protein that excites R&D but stalls in procurement delivers no impact at scale.

By contrast, system-level approaches - where harvest, processing, supply assurance, and compliance are considered together - reduce friction before it appears.

This is why integration upstream matters. When ingredients are designed from the outset to align with how food is actually grown, processed, audited, and sold, reformulation becomes a commercial decision, not a speculative one.

Reformulation without consumer trade-offs

Crucially, low-friction reformulation also reduces consumer risk.

Many sustainability-led innovations ask consumers to change behaviour: accept unfamiliar ingredients, tolerate different textures, or pay a premium for virtue.

Low-friction approaches avoid that trap.

When reformulation focuses on familiar crops, familiar formats, and behind-the-scenes improvements - such as better utilisation of existing agricultural outputs - the consumer experience remains stable, even as the system improves.

That alignment matters. The fastest-scaling changes in food are rarely the most visible ones.

The strategic upside for food producers

For producers, the benefits of low-friction reformulation compound:

• Faster internal alignment between technical, procurement, and commercial teams

• Shorter approval cycles with retailers and brand partners

• Lower execution risk at scale

• Credible Scope 3 reductions tied to operational change, not offsets

• Optionality to reformulate further without rebuilding infrastructure

In an environment where resilience is as important as differentiation, these advantages matter.

Closing thought: progress that fits the system

The food system does not need more disruption for its own sake. It needs progress that fits.

Low-friction reformulation recognises a simple truth: the fastest way to change the food system is not to fight its constraints, but to design within them — and quietly remove them over time.

For food producers under pressure to deliver cost control, sustainability, and reliability simultaneously, that approach is not conservative.

It is pragmatic.

It is scalable.

And increasingly, it is the only way change actually happens.

Read more here.

Yuka: The reformulation pressure food producers didn’t vote for (and why UPP is built for it)

Food companies are used to scrutiny. But the source of scrutiny is changing.

For most of the modern food system, legitimacy came from compliance: ingredient declarations, nutrition panels, and the fact a product met regulatory requirements. That framework still matters. But it no longer determines trust.

A growing share of consumers are outsourcing judgement to apps that sit outside the regulatory system entirely. One of the most influential is the French app Yuka.

It’s often described as a “food scanning” app. In practice, it functions more like a parallel credentialing system — one that is increasingly shaping what gets bought, what gets stocked, and what gets reformulated.

And that matters directly to the kind of upstream ingredient work UPP exists to enable.

A small app with outsized reach

Yuka launched in France in 2017. It now has more than 80 million users across 12 countries and 5 languages. In its home market, it’s used by roughly 1 in 3 adults (22 million users). In the US — where it launched in 2022 — it has reached 22–25 million users, and is now its largest and fastest-growing market, adding around 600,000 sign-ups per month.

It has processed more than 8.3 billion product scans to date (including 2.7 billion scans in 2024 alone), and built a database of 5 million product ratings across food and personal care.

The more important point is not the exact numbers. It’s what the numbers represent: Yuka has become a default layer of interpretation between the shelf and the shopper — without relying on traditional marketing or advertising. Growth is largely word-of-mouth.

That’s a sign of structural adoption, not a niche trend.

How Yuka scores food (and why it creates pressure)

Yuka assigns products a score from 0–100. The methodology is transparent in structure but opinionated in weighting:

60% nutritional quality, based on Nutri-Score

30% additives, with “high-risk” additives hard-capping a product at 49/100

10% organic dimension

Users don’t just see a score. They see a simple judgement (“excellent”, “good”, “mediocre”, “poor”) plus suggested alternatives.

This is where the commercial impact compounds. Yuka doesn’t just inform consumers. It redirects demand.

A product can be fully compliant and still become commercially fragile if it is scored poorly by a system consumers increasingly trust more than packaging claims or regulatory thresholds.

The part most manufacturers underestimate: the feedback loop

Yuka’s most consequential feature isn’t the rating.

It’s the mechanism that turns consumer dissatisfaction into direct reformulation pressure.

From inside the app, users can message brands with one click, sharing low product scores and urging reformulation. That turns millions of consumers into a distributed, always-on feedback loop.

Historically, reformulation pressure came from a small number of places:

1. regulators

2. retail buyers

3. internal nutrition targets

4. NGOs and media cycles

Yuka adds something different: persistent, product-specific scrutiny at the point of purchase, applied at scale, and repeated every day.

For producers, that changes the cost of inaction. It also changes the timeline. This isn’t a once-a-year strategy discussion. It’s a live operational risk.

Why this matters: reformulation is no longer just innovation. It’s defence.

Reformulation is often framed as innovation: new ingredients, new claims, new launches.

In reality, reformulation tends to fail for a more basic reason: it introduces too much friction into systems that are already under pressure.

Food manufacturers are balancing cost volatility, labour constraints, retailer scrutiny, Scope 3 accountability, and increasingly conservative capital environments — while maintaining taste, texture, safety, and margin.

High-friction reformulation introduces compounding risks: changes to processing lines, new allergen or regulatory complexity, uncertain supply at scale, sensory uncertainty, and additional approval cycles with retailers.

This is why many reformulation programmes quietly revert to incremental tweaks, even when bigger changes would be strategically smarter.

Yuka accelerates that reality. It makes the downside of “good enough” more visible.

Why this connects directly to UPP

At UPP, we’ve always assumed the food system won’t change through consumer behaviour alone.

Public health already tells us that behaviour change is unreliable — even when the stakes are personal health. So it’s unrealistic to expect consumers to overhaul their diets to reduce carbon emissions, improve nutrition, or avoid ultra-processing.

That doesn’t make consumers the problem.

It makes system design the problem.

Yuka doesn’t contradict that view. It reinforces it — from the opposite direction.

Consumers aren’t being asked to become perfect. They’re being given a tool that makes certain products feel harder to trust, and nudges them toward “cleaner” formulation logic. Whether or not you agree with Yuka’s weighting, the direction of travel is clear:

shorter ingredient lists

fewer additives that sound synthetic or unnecessary

more nutrition per bite

more explainable inputs

The industry can treat this as a communications challenge, but it’s more accurately a formulation and systems challenge.

And this is where UPP’s model becomes relevant.

UPP works upstream, taking under-utilised vegetables and converting them into food-grade protein and fibre ingredients that integrate into mainstream manufacturing. The goal isn’t to create novelty. It’s to remove friction.

Because the fastest way to improve food isn’t to ask consumers to change what they buy. It’s to improve what goes into the products they already buy — quietly, at scale, without disrupting production reality.

Low-friction reformulation isn’t a “nice to have” anymore. It’s becoming a strategic requirement.

What “Yuka-proofing” actually looks like

For most producers, the practical response to Yuka isn’t to optimise for a perfect score. It’s to reduce the surface area of vulnerability:

simplify ingredient systems where possible

replace fragmented additive stacks with more integrated, crop-derived functionality

increase protein and fibre density without making products heavier or harder to tolerate

improve label familiarity without sacrificing performance

In other words: reformulate in ways that don’t break the system.

This is exactly why familiarity and integration matter. Ingredients that behave predictably in standard manufacturing processes, arrive with procurement-grade documentation, and can replace multiple functions at once are more adoptable than technically impressive solutions that introduce operational risk.

Closing thought: a parallel credentialing system is now in play

Yuka has created a parallel credentialing system that influences consumer choice regardless of what regulators permit.

For food producers, the question isn’t whether Yuka’s scoring is fair.

It’s whether your products can withstand scrutiny from systems you don’t control.

In that environment, the winning strategy isn’t loud disruption. It’s quiet upstream improvement: better nutrition density, fewer unnecessary additives, simpler ingredient logic, and reformulation that fits existing manufacturing constraints.

That is what UPP is built to enable.

Quiet change. Upstream. At scale.

Clean ingredients that sound natural - and why that suddenly matters again

For years, the food industry has treated “clean label” as a marketing problem.

• Remove an E-number.

• Use "store cupboard ingredients"

• Reduce the length of ingredient declarations on back of pack.

What’s changed recently is not the existence of processed food - it’s the level of public scrutiny around how food is processed, why, and whether the trade-offs are still justified. The debate has re-entered the mainstream.

From Joe Wicks: Food for Fitness to the success of Chris van Tulleken’s “Ultra-Processed People”, consumers are being exposed - often for the first time - to the idea that not all processing is equal, and that formulation decisions made far upstream can shape health, trust, and perception downstream.

For food producers, this creates a familiar tension.

• The system still needs processed food.

• Scale still requires consistency, safety, and shelf life.

• Cost pressure has not gone away.

But the tolerance for ingredients that sound synthetic, opaque, or unnecessary is narrowing. And that matters — not because of ideology, but because perception now influences risk.

The quiet return of ingredient scrutiny

What’s striking about the current moment is how little it resembles previous “clean eating” cycles. This is not about superfoods or exclusion diets.

It is about processing logic.

Both the documentary and the book focus less on individual nutrients, and more on the architecture of modern food: fractionation, recombination, texture engineering, and the substitution of whole-food function with isolated additives.

That framing resonates because it aligns with something food manufacturers already know internally: Many formulation decisions were made to solve industrial constraints - not nutritional ones.

Those decisions made sense at the time. But some of their side-effects are now visible to consumers in a way they weren’t before.

Why “natural-sounding” ingredients are not about optics

There’s a temptation to treat this moment as a communications challenge.

Change the language.

Control the narrative.

Re-educate the consumer.

That approach misses the point.

What consumers are responding to is not branding — it’s credibility. Ingredients that sound natural tend to share three characteristics:

They originate from recognisable crops or processes

• They perform multiple functions, rather than replacing each one with a separate additive

• They can be explained without a chemistry lesson

This is not nostalgia. It’s cognitive load. When ingredient lists become shorter and more intuitive, trust increases - even if the product remains processed.

Processing is not the enemy - fragmentation is

One of the most unhelpful conclusions drawn from the “ultra-processed” debate is that processing itself is the problem. It isn’t.

Processing is what allows food to be safe, affordable, and widely available.

The issue is how fragmented processing has become.

Over time, many foods have been deconstructed into ever more specialised inputs -stabilisers, emulsifiers, texturisers, isolates - each solving a narrow technical problem, often sourced from different global supply chains. The result is food that works industrially, but looks and feels increasingly abstract to the people eating it.

Reversing that trend does not require abandoning processing. It requires re-integrating function.

When one ingredient can do the work of many

From a formulation perspective, the most powerful ingredients today are not the most novel. They are the ones that:

• deliver protein, fibre, and functionality together

• replace multiple additives with a single crop-derived input

• integrate into existing processes without re-engineering lines

• arrive with procurement-grade traceability and allergen clarity

This is where “clean” stops being about purity and starts being about efficiency - fewer ingredients, fewer suppliers, fewer explanations.

For manufacturers under pressure to reduce cost, risk, and Scope 3 emissions simultaneously, this matters more than philosophy.

Clean labels as a by-product of better system design

The most scalable changes in food rarely happen because consumers demand them explicitly. They happen because producers redesign systems in ways that quietly remove friction.

When ingredients are:

• derived from familiar crops

• processed through transparent, auditable systems

• supplied regionally rather than globally

• used to replace several additives at once the label improves as a side-effect.

Not because anyone set out to chase a claim — but because the system became simpler.

That distinction is important.

Why this matters now - commercially, not culturally

The current focus on ultra-processing will not last forever. But its effects on risk perception, retailer scrutiny, and regulatory attention already matter. For food producers, the question is not whether to respond – it is how.

High-friction reformulation in response to public pressure often creates more problems than it solves.

Low-friction reformulation - using ingredients that behave like food, sound like food, and come from food - creates optionality.

It allows producers to:

• simplify labels without compromising performance

• reduce additive dependency without redesigning factories

• respond to current media pressure without chasing trends

• future-proof portfolios against shifting definitions of “acceptable” processing

That is not a consumer strategy. It is a resilience strategy.

Closing thought: familiarity scales faster than novelty

The food system does not need to swing from hyper-processed to idealised whole foods. It needs better integration between agriculture, processing, and formulation - so that ingredients once again look and feel like they belong in food.

In a world where scrutiny is rising but tolerance for disruption is low, the safest path forward is not to fight processing - but to make it quieter, simpler, and easier to explain.

Clean ingredients that sound natural are not about going backwards. They are about rebuilding trust - one formulation decision at a time.

Read more here.

The most advanced taste tool we have is still a Chef

Some universities are trying to build an artificial tongue - a sensor system that can “measure” mouthfeel. And to be fair, the ambition makes sense. Mouthfeel is hard to quantify, and harder still to replicate at scale.

But at UPP, we back the Mark 1 human, or “Joe”.

Because food isn’t for sensors. It’s for people.

And if you want to innovate in food - really innovate, in a way that survives the journey from idea to supermarket shelf - you need to keep people at the heart of the process. That starts with the person who understands the eating experience better than anyone else: the chef.

The chef is the hero - not the lab

There’s a myth that food innovation is mainly about technology: new processing, new ingredients, new data, new optimisation.

In reality, the breakthrough usually comes from a much simpler place:

A chef tasting something and saying, “Not yet.”

That moment matters because it’s where the real standard is set. Not “does it meet the spec?” but:

Does it feel right when you chew it?

Does it eat like food?

Would you actually want a second bite?

A supermarket product doesn’t win because it’s clever. It wins because it’s comfortably familiar - and quietly better.

That’s the chef’s territory.

The creation journey: from idea to shelf

When we build a new meal concept for retail, it starts the same way most great food does: with a simple question.

What are we trying to make people feel when they eat this?

Not nutritionally. Emotionally. Practically. In the real world.

Because the moment it lands in someone’s basket, the rules change. It’s no longer a prototype. It’s dinner on a Tuesday. It has to work when someone is tired, hungry, price-sensitive, and not interested in being educated.

So the chef begins building - testing flavour, texture, aroma, and structure. The goal isn’t novelty. It’s confidence.

And this is where “mouthfeel” stops being a buzzword and becomes a make-or-break reality.

Mouthfeel is where good intentions go to die

You can have the best nutrition profile in the world and still fail on shelf if the eating experience is wrong.

Too dry.

Too grainy.

Too bouncy.

Too “engineered.”

Consumers don’t describe it that way, of course. They just say:

“I didn’t like it.”

Or worse - they don’t say anything at all, and they simply don’t buy it again.

That’s why mouthfeel is one of the highest-leverage parts of product development. It’s also why we don’t believe the solution is to remove humans from the loop.

We don’t want food assessed by something that simulates a tongue.

We want it assessed by the people who actually eat it.

Technology matters - but it plays a supporting role

UPP is technology-enabled, and we’re proud of that. We work upstream, turning under-utilised vegetables into functional ingredients that help food manufacturers improve nutrition, efficiency, and resilience.

But we’re clear-eyed about something: Technology doesn’t make food good. People do.

Our ingredients are designed to integrate into real manufacturing and real products - but they still have to pass the same test every time:

Does it taste good? Does it feel right? Does it work as food?

That’s why chefs are not an optional extra in innovation. They are the decision-makers who protect the eating experience as products scale.

Keeping people at the heart of innovation

The food industry is under pressure from every angle: cost, labour, emissions, reformulation, protein targets, fibre gaps, clean label scrutiny.

In that environment, it’s tempting to treat product development like a maths problem.

But food isn’t just a system of inputs. It’s a human experience.

And the fastest way to build the wrong future is to optimise everything except the thing that matters most: whether people actually enjoy eating it.

That’s why we keep coming back to the same principle:

Food is for people. So people belong at the centre of innovation.

Not as an afterthought. Not as a “consumer test” at the end.

Right at the beginning - with a chef, a spoon, and an uncompromising standard for what belongs on a plate.

Closing thought: trust the classical approach

We’re not against artificial tongues - they may well become useful tools for R&D.

But the best instrument we have for building food that works in the real world is still the simplest: A chef tasting, refining, and insisting that it eats like something you’d actually want to buy again.

The Mark 1 human remains undefeated.

We are not about restricting progress – we are leading the charge on utilisation and hybridisation – it’s about blending emerging technologies with classic approaches. Like everything else in food, it’s all about getting the blend right. And in a world obsessed with engineering the future of food, we think that’s worth remembering.

If people won’t change their diet to save their lives, why would they change it to save the planet?

For years, much of the food sustainability debate has rested on an uncomfortable assumption: that consumers will change first.

• Eat differently.

• Buy differently.

• Pay more.

• Care more.

Sometimes they do. Often, they don’t. And that’s not because people are ignorant or indifferent - it’s because food choices are made inside real constraints.

When there is too much month left at the end of the pay cheque, sustainability becomes a luxury. When time, money, and familiarity matter, people default to what works. That reality doesn’t make consumers the problem. It makes the system the problem.

At UPP, we don’t judge consumer behaviour - because judging behaviour doesn’t change outcomes. Designing systems that work within reality does.

Behaviour change is a weak lever - system change is a power enabler.

Public health has already taught us this lesson: If people won’t reliably change their diets to improve their own health, it is unrealistic to expect them to overhaul their food choices to reduce carbon emissions - especially when the alternatives are unfamiliar, more expensive, or harder to trust.

The food system cannot decarbonise by asking millions of households to behave differently every day. It can decarbonise by changing what goes into food: quietly, upstream, and at scale.

That is where leverage actually sits.

Waste is not a moral failure - it’s a design failure

Across UK and European agriculture, vast volumes of nutritious vegetables are grown every year and never enter the food system.

• Not because they are unsafe.

• Not because they lack nutritional value.

• But because harvesting them is labour-intensive, uneconomic, or poorly integrated with downstream demand.

Those crops are left in fields or diverted to low-value uses, while food manufacturers import ingredients from halfway around the world to perform the same functions.

That isn’t a consumer choice problem.

It’s a systems design problem.

UPP exists to fix that. Using what already exists - before growing more. Our approach starts with a simple question: “What if we used the food we already grow — but don’t currently use - to replace ingredients that travel thousands of miles?

UPP works with wasted and under-utilised vegetables: grown in the UK where possible, and in Spain during winter when domestic supply isn’t viable

• We don’t compete with fresh markets.

• We don’t displace food from plates.

• We work with plants that would otherwise be left to rot.

From those crops, we produce protein and fibre ingredients that:

• displace globally sourced inputs

• deliver lower CO₂ even if grown for purpose

• and do so at a cost that works for real food systems

This is not about niche substitution. It’s about mainstream replacement. Sustainability that pays for itself scales faster. One of the reasons sustainability efforts stall is simple: they cost money. UPP’s model flips that logic. Because our ingredients are derived from side-streams and under-utilised crops:

• farmers gain a new income stream from material that previously had little or no value

• producers gain lower-cost ingredients that integrate into existing processes

• retailers gain credible Scope 3 reductions tied to operational change

• consumers get nutritious food at lower or equivalent prices

Margins improve instead of eroding. That matters - because the changes that last are the ones that make commercial sense. Technology is the enabler - not the point.

Yes, this is technology-enabled.

Yes, it’s patent-protected.

Yes, it involves automation, processing innovation, and system integration.

But technology is not the goal. We are not developing technology for its own sake. We are developing technology to achieve an outcome. Every decision is anchored to a single question:

Does this make the system work better - economically and environmentally — without asking people to behave differently?

If the answer is no, it doesn’t scale.

Quiet change beats loud disruption

UPP’s ingredients don’t ask consumers to learn new words, adopt new diets, or pay a premium for virtue. They sit behind the scenes - improving food by changing how it is made, not how it is marketed. That is why this approach works:

• familiar crops

• familiar foods

• familiar buying behaviour

But with lower waste, lower emissions, and better economics embedded upstream.

Better for everyone — by design

This is systems-thinking applied to food:

Better for planters (farmers): new revenue, less waste, more resilient economics

Better for producers: lower costs, lower risk, low-friction reformulation

Better for people: nutritious, affordable food without behavioural trade-offs

Better for the planet: emissions reduced at source, not offset after the fact

But

No judgement.

No guilt.

No unrealistic assumptions about how people “should” behave.

Just a better system — designed to work in the real world.

Because the fastest way to change what people buy is not to ask them to change at all - it’s to change the system behind the shelf.

Read more here.

A World Without Cows: What happens when we optimise the wrong variable?

The film World Without Cows (https://worldwithoutcows.com/?) asks a deceptively simple question: “what would the world look like if cows disappeared?” It’s based on a white paper that appeared in Nutrition (https://www.livestockresearch.ca/uploads/cross_sectors/files/A-World-Without-Cows-Imagine-Waking-Up-One-Day-to-7.pdf) – the story is worth reading (https://worldwithoutcows.com/cows-disappeared-scientific-paper-film/)

It’s an emotionally charged premise because cows sit at the intersection of so many modern tensions - climate, land use, food security, rural livelihoods, nutrition, culture, and identity. But what makes the film valuable is not that it defends cattle uncritically, or dismisses the environmental case against them. It highlights something more important: the risk of treating complex food systems as if they have single-variable solutions.

In a moment where “remove the cow” is sometimes presented as a shortcut to sustainability, World Without Cows pushes back with an uncomfortable reminder: systems don’t behave like spreadsheets.

And food systems rarely reward simplification.

The temptation of the clean narrative

Food sustainability debates often gravitate toward clean, binary stories:

• cows are bad

• plants are good

• methane is the problem

• replacement is the answer

That narrative is emotionally satisfying because it offers clarity. But it can also become a trap. Because the real question is not whether cows have impact. They do. The question is what happens after we remove them - and whether the “solution” creates second-order consequences that are worse than the original problem.

This is where the film’s premise becomes useful: it forces us to consider the system response, not just the headline metric.

Behaviour change is a weak lever. System design is the power lever.

One of the biggest mistakes in sustainability strategy is assuming consumers will change first.

• Eat differently.

• Pay more.

• Accept unfamiliar textures and ingredients.

• Rebuild habits.

But public health already tells us how this goes: if people won’t reliably change their diet to improve their own health, it’s unrealistic to expect them to change it to reduce emissions - especially under cost pressure.

So if the goal is real-world impact at scale, the solution can’t depend on everyone making perfect choices every day.

It has to come from upstream changes that make the default food system work better - without requiring the public to become different people.

That is why we focus on system change, not food ideology.

Replacement strategies often fail because they introduce friction

The film indirectly exposes another commercial reality: even when the sustainability case for “cow-free” food is strong, replacement is hard to execute at scale. Because replacement strategies often come with high friction:

• new supply chains

• new processing requirements

• new sensory compromises

• new approval cycles

• higher costs

• unfamiliar ingredients and consumer scepticism

In practice, reformulation doesn’t fail due to lack of ambition. It fails because it introduces too much disruption into systems already under pressure.

That’s why “low-friction reformulation” matters: ingredients and approaches that reduce emissions, cost, and risk without breaking manufacturing reality.

A world without cows still needs protein, function, and affordability

Remove cows, and you don’t just remove emissions.

You remove a huge amount of:

• high-quality protein

• functional fat systems

• nutrient density

• agricultural value creation

• rural economic stability

The question then becomes: what fills the gap?

Not in theory - in supermarkets, school meals, hospitals, and mainstream ready meals. At price points that normal households can afford.

And this is where many “cow-free” narratives become fragile: they assume the alternative system is already built, already scalable, already affordable, and already trusted.

It isn’t.

The better question: how do we reduce impact without breaking food?

This is why the most scalable sustainability strategies in food are rarely ideological. They are operational.

They focus on efficiency - using what we already grow more effectively - so that sustainability becomes a by-product of better system design.

At UPP, our work is built around that principle: using under-utilised vegetables and side streams and converting them into functional protein and fibre ingredients that integrate into mainstream manufacturing.

Not because consumers want to “eat side streams”.

But because the system is wasting nutrition at scale - and importing ingredients to replace functions that already exist in-field.

Waste is not a moral failure. It’s a design failure.

Hybridisation beats disruption: the fastest route to real impact

One of the most practical outcomes of the “world without cows” thought experiment is this: you don’t need total elimination to create meaningful change.

You need partial displacement at high volume.

That’s why we believe in ingredient stacking and hybridisation - not as a consumer trend, but as a systems strategy.

For example:

• reducing meat inclusion in processed foods while maintaining taste and affordability

• increasing nutrition density by adding vegetable-derived protein and fibre

• improving texture and yield without additive-heavy formulation

This is not “anti-meat”. It’s pro-efficiency.

It reduces emissions faster because it fits inside existing buying behaviour and existing manufacturing.

Quiet change beats loud disruption.

The film’s real message: beware single-variable optimisation

World Without Cows is ultimately a warning against solving food sustainability by removing one component and assuming the rest of the system will self-correct. The interview with the film makers is worth watching: https://worldwithoutcows.com/the-making-of-world-without-cows

Because the food system is not a single problem.

It’s a network of constraints: nutrition, economics, labour, land, resilience, consumer trust, processing infrastructure, and supply chain risk.

If we optimise only for “remove cows”, we may unintentionally worsen:

• nutrition density

• affordability

• land-use outcomes

• reliance on imported, fragmented ingredients

• food security and resilience

And we may still fail to deliver the climate gains we expect - because the replacement system carries its own footprint, frictions, and unintended consequences.

Closing thought: don’t aim for a world without cows - aim for a world that works

The most useful takeaway from World Without Cows isn’t that cattle are perfect, or that nothing should change.

It’s that the path to better food systems isn’t purity.

It’s practicality.

The food system will not decarbonise through moral pressure or consumer behaviour change. It will decarbonise when upstream design makes lower-impact food the easiest, cheapest, most reliable option — for producers, retailers, and households.

That is the work:

not removing cows to feel certain,

but redesigning systems to reduce waste, improve nutrition, cut Scope 3 emissions, and keep food affordable - at scale.

Progress that fits the system is the only kind that lasts.

Upcycling as Infrastructure: Why UPP Joined the Upcycled Food Association

For much of UPP’s development, we’ve worked quietly upstream — focused on harvest automation, processing infrastructure, and ingredient integration rather than labels, claims, or categories.

That hasn’t been accidental.

Our view has always been that the fastest way to improve nutrition and reduce environmental cost is not to ask consumers to change what they buy, but to change what goes into food - reliably, at scale, and without adding friction to systems that are already under pressure.

In that context, UPP’s decision to join the Upcycled Food Association is less about affiliation, and more about alignment.

Why “upcycled” fits UPP’s model - without changing it

The term upcycled food is often associated with consumer-facing products and on-pack certification. That’s not where UPP operates.

Our work sits earlier in the system: taking under-utilised crops and side-streams that already exist, and converting them into food-grade protein and fibre ingredients that integrate into mainstream manufacturing.

But at a system level, the logic is the same.

Upcycling is not about novelty. It’s about using what we already grow more effectively - before we grow more, import more, or extract more.

That principle has guided UPP from the start:

• working with vegetables that are left in-field or diverted to low-value pathways

• converting them into ingredients that displace globally sourced inputs

• improving nutrition density while lowering embedded emissions

• doing so at costs that work for real food producers

The Upcycled Food Association (https://www.upcycledfood.org/) exists to accelerate exactly that kind of system-level change - not by reinventing the food system, but by reconnecting its broken loops.

From fragmented effort to shared infrastructure

One of the persistent challenges in food sustainability is fragmentation:

• Farmers optimise yields.

• Manufacturers optimise processes.

• Retailers optimise risk.

• Consumers optimise price and familiarity.

Waste, emissions, and nutritional dilution tend to sit in the gaps between those objectives.

The Upcycled Food Association plays an important role by creating shared standards, language, and credibility around a simple idea: that waste is not a moral failure, but a design failure - and one that can be fixed.

For UPP, joining the Association is a way of contributing operational proof to that mission.

Not theory.

Not aspiration.

But infrastructure that works under commercial conditions.

Expanding the platform - including into California

While UPP’s current operations are anchored in the UK and Europe, our ambition has always been to build a replicable harvest-to-ingredient platform, not a single geography–bound solution.

California is a natural next step. It is one of the world’s most productive agricultural regions — and also one of the most constrained:

• labour availability is structural, not cyclical

• water and input efficiency are under scrutiny

• food waste volumes are significant

• nutrition and sustainability pressures intersect directly

These are exactly the conditions UPP’s system is designed for.

By engaging with the Upcycled Food Association’s network in the US, UPP aims to:

• collaborate with growers and processors facing similar structural challenges

• adapt our approach to crops and conditions specific to California

• contribute to a broader ecosystem focused on nutrition, waste reduction, and commercial viability

• ensure that expansion is grounded in existing supply chains, not built in isolation

This is not about exporting a finished solution. It’s about deploying a proven logic into a new context - carefully, collaboratively, and with local relevance

Improving nutrition without asking people to try harder

A consistent thread in UPP’s work - and one shared by the Upcycled Food Association - is realism about behaviour. If people won’t reliably change their diets to improve their own health, it is unrealistic to expect them to overhaul their food choices to save the planet.

That doesn’t make consumers the problem.

It makes system design the problem.

Upcycled ingredients, when done properly, allow nutrition to improve quietly:

• more protein and fibre per bite

• fewer imported, fractionated inputs

• familiar foods made better upstream

• No new habits.

• No premium positioning.

• No behavioural trade-offs.

That is how change actually scales.

Reducing environmental cost where it matters most

From an environmental perspective, the most meaningful reductions rarely come from offsets or end-of-chain claims. They come from using existing land, crops, and inputs more efficiently.

By turning under-utilised vegetables into ingredients that replace conventional alternatives, UPP’s model:

• reduces waste at source

• lowers the need for additional agricultural production

• cuts transport and processing emissions embedded in global supply chains

• creates verifiable Scope 3 reductions tied to operational change

The Upcycled Food Association provides a framework for recognising and accelerating these kinds of outcomes — grounded in evidence rather than marketing.

A shared direction, not a new identity

Joining the Upcycled Food Association does not change UPP’s role.

We remain an upstream, B2B ingredient platform.

We remain focused on low-friction reformulation.

We remain committed to designing within real-world constraints.

What it does signal is intent:

• to participate in a broader, international effort to redesign food systems around efficiency rather than excess

• to contribute practical infrastructure, not just ideas

• to expand responsibly - including into California - in partnership with those already doing the work

Progress in food rarely comes from loud disruption. It comes from quiet alignment, repeated at scale.

That’s what upcycling looks like when it’s treated as infrastructure - and why this is a natural next step for UPP.

Ingredient stacking: the fastest route to lower-carbon food that still tastes like food

Most of the food industry’s sustainability debate still gets stuck in the same place: replacement.

• Replace meat with plants.

• Replace dairy with alternatives.

• Replace “bad” ingredients with “better” ones.

The problem is that replacement strategies often come with high friction: new supply chains, new processing behaviour, new allergen complexity, new sensory problems, and – critically - new consumer compromise.

That’s why so many “climate-friendly” products struggle to scale. Not because the science is wrong, but because the system is real.

A more practical approach is emerging—one that fits the way food is actually made, bought, and eaten: ingredient stacking.

Not a new category. Not a new diet.

Just smarter formulation.

Ingredient stacking means combining ingredients so that each one contributes something different - nutrition, function, taste, cost efficiency, and lower embedded emissions - without forcing a total product redesign.

And because it works within existing food formats, it can deliver results faster, with lower risk, and at scale.

That is exactly the kind of low-friction change the food system needs right now.

Why replacement is slow - and stacking is fast

Reformulation rarely fails due to lack of ambition. It fails because it introduces too much disruption into already stressed operations: cost volatility, labour constraints, retailer scrutiny, and Scope 3 accountability all at once.

That’s why the highest-leverage ingredient strategies today aren’t the ones that promise “reinvention.” They’re the ones that deliver measurable change without breaking manufacturing reality.

Ingredient stacking does exactly that.

It doesn’t ask food producers to bet the product on a single hero ingredient.

It spreads performance across multiple familiar inputs - so the final product still behaves like food.

The basic idea: don’t swap one thing for another - combine them

Ingredient stacking is simple:

Example 1: beef + beans + broccoli fibre

Instead of a binary choice—beef burger vs plant burger—stacking gives a third option:

• Beef delivers the flavour, texture, and consumer familiarity people already want

• Beans contribute protein, fibre, and cost-effective bulk

• Broccoli fibre improves nutrition density and can support texture, water-holding, and satiety

This isn’t about taking meat away. It’s about using less of the high-impact ingredient, while improving the overall nutrition and economics.

That matters because behaviour change is a weak lever. System change is the power lever.

Example 2: pea protein + broccoli protein

Plant protein products often struggle because they rely heavily on isolates and functional additives to hit texture and mouthfeel targets.

Stacking helps by combining:

• pea protein (familiar, scalable, widely adopted)

• broccoli protein (nutrient-dense, crop-derived, and aligned with a “sounds like food” ingredient story)

The result is a protein system that can be more balanced, less additive-dependent, and more explainable to consumers - without needing to invent a new eating behaviour.

Why stacking can cut GHG faster than “perfect” solutions

A lot of climate strategy in food gets stuck chasing the ideal endpoint.

But the atmosphere doesn’t reward idealism. It rewards tonnes of CO₂ removed now.

Ingredient stacking accelerates GHG reduction because it works through:

Partial displacement at high volume

You don’t need 100% replacement to create impact.

If you can reduce meat inclusion by 10–30% across mainstream products - while keeping taste and price stable - you can drive large reductions across a big base.

This is “quiet change beats loud disruption” in practice.

Lower-carbon nutrition density

The next phase of food is moving toward more nutrition per bite, not more calories per pound - especially as GLP-1 use expands and portions shrink.

Stacking protein + fibre (for example broccoli protein + broccoli fibre) helps deliver:

• satiety

• digestive tolerance

• nutrient density

…without forcing consumers into niche diet products.

Better use of what we already grow

The fastest emissions reductions often come from using existing crops more efficiently, not growing new ones. A meaningful share of broccoli biomass never enters the food system - not because it isn’t nutritious, but because it isn’t economically integrated into downstream demand.

Stacking lets manufacturers turn under-utilised vegetable nutrition into functional ingredients that can replace imported, fragmented inputs - reducing emissions where they actually sit: upstream, in Scope 3.

Stacking also improves food - not just carbon

The sustainability conversation often forgets the obvious constraint: food still has to taste good.

Ingredient stacking improves palatability because it avoids forcing any single ingredient to do everything.

Instead, each ingredient plays a role:

• animal protein provides flavour authenticity

• legumes contribute body and protein

• vegetable fibre improves bite, juiciness, and nutrition density

• vegetable protein adds complementary amino acids and a cleaner “food-like” ingredient narrative

This matters because consumers aren’t rejecting sustainability - they’re rejecting trade-offs.

Stacking reduces the trade-offs.

Cost and consumer acceptance: where stacking wins

Sustainability that costs more rarely scales. The system is too price-sensitive. Ingredient stacking is commercially powerful because it can:

1. reduce reliance on volatile commodity inputs

2. replace expensive isolates or additive systems

3. improve yield and water-holding in processed foods

4. simplify formulations (fewer “chemistry-sounding” ingredients)

And crucially, it does this while keeping products familiar.

Familiarity scales faster than novelty.

Why ingredient stacking is “low-friction reformulation” in action

Low-friction reformulation isn’t about avoiding innovation. It’s about designing innovation around existing food systems—so adoption happens quickly, not eventually.

Ingredient stacking fits that logic because it tends to:

• integrate into existing processes

• reduce sensory risk

• reduce the need for new consumer education

• deliver measurable Scope 3 reductions through operational change, not offsets

It is pragmatic.

It is scalable.

And it is exactly how mainstream food actually changes.

Closing thought: The fastest decarbonisation strategy is the one that doesn’t feel like one

If the industry waits for consumers to choose radically different foods, progress will be slow.

But if manufacturers quietly improve everyday products -by stacking familiar ingredients in smarter ways - the system can shift quickly:

• lower emissions

• higher nutrition density

• better taste

• lower cost

• less waste

• more resilience

Not through disruption.

Through better design.

That’s ingredient stacking: a faster route to better food, built to scale in the real world.

Balanced Proteins: Quiet Scale Beats Loud Disruption

For years, the protein transition has been framed as a battle of replacement.

Replace meat with plants. Replace familiar foods with new formats. Replace existing supply chains with entirely new ones.

The problem is not ambition. It’s friction.

As the Balanced Proteins: State of the Category 2025 report makes clear, the most scalable progress in protein is not coming from asking consumers to change what they eat - but from changing what goes into the foods they already buy.

That distinction matters. Because behaviour change is a weak lever. System change is the power lever.

Balanced Proteins are not a compromise - they are an optimisation

Balanced Proteins sit deliberately in the middle of the protein spectrum. They combine animal protein with plant, fermentation-derived, or cultivated ingredients to reduce cost, emissions, and nutritional gaps - without sacrificing taste, familiarity, or performance.

According to the report, products that replace as little as 30% of animal ingredients already deliver measurable gains across:

• Cost stability, as animal protein prices remain structurally volatile

• Nutrition density, especially fibre — where 97% of children fall short of recommendations

• Emissions, particularly when beef is partially displaced

• Operational fit, by integrating into existing manufacturing and foodservice systems

This is not a future-facing hypothesis. It is already happening - quietly, at scale.

The market signal is clear: low friction wins

The strongest adoption signals in the category are not coming from niche retail launches. They are coming from places where performance matters most:

• Institutional foodservice converting significant volumes of minced beef to balanced formats

• Retailers pricing balanced products below conventional meat to drive trial

• Manufacturers using ingredient-based blends to stabilise margins without retooling factories

• The report estimates a $5.3bn US serviceable obtainable market today — equivalent to frozen pizza — with a total addressable market aligned to the full $250bn US meat sector.

That gap tells an important story.

This is not a demand problem. It is a deployment problem.

Why balanced proteins succeed where replacements stall

Across multiple chapters, the report returns to the same structural insight: products scale when they work with existing systems, not against them. Balanced Proteins succeed because they:

• Preserve familiarity: format, flavour, and cooking behaviour stay the same

• Reduce risk: no new allergens, no exotic supply chains, no speculative infrastructure

• Improve economic: partial displacement lowers input cost and volatility

• Deliver nutrition quietly: fibre, protein, and micronutrients improve without consumer effort

This mirrors a broader lesson we see across reformulation, clean label, and sustainability work:

The fastest-scaling changes in food are rarely the most visible ones.

Partial change, massive impact

One of the most important contributions of the Balanced Proteins framework is reframing impact.

The atmosphere does not care whether a product is 10% better or 100% transformed. It only cares about tonnes of CO₂ avoided.

• Balanced Proteins unlock impact through:

• Partial substitution at high volume

• Use of familiar crops and ingredients

• Integration into mainstream foods, not niche categories

Reducing beef content by 20–30% across widely consumed products delivers far more impact than perfect solutions that never scale.

Quiet change beats loud disruption.

Nutrition per bite is becoming the real constraint

The report also lands at the same conclusion emerging elsewhere in the food system:

As portions shrink - due to ageing populations, cost pressure, or GLP‑1 use - nutrition density matters more than ever.

Foods optimised for volume and calories fail when people eat less.

Balanced Proteins respond to that reality by:

• Adding fibre where diets are deficient

• Maintaining protein quality and quantity

• Improving satiety without increasing portion size

• Avoiding ultra‑fractionated additive stacks

This is not diet food. It is better everyday food.

From proof‑of‑concept to proof‑of‑category

The final message of the State of the Category report is not technological - it is strategic.

Balanced Proteins do not need reinvention. They need normalisation.

That requires:

Clear category framing

• Ingredient platforms that integrate upstream

• Co‑manufacturing capacity

• Retail and foodservice partners willing to lead

• Capital aligned with infrastructure, not hype

In other words: proof‑of‑category, not proof‑of‑concept.

The opportunity ahead

Balanced Proteins are not a trend. They are a correction.

A correction to a food system that over‑optimised for volume. A correction to climate strategies that rely on behaviour change. A correction to innovation models that mistake novelty for impact.

The category’s strength lies precisely in what makes it unglamorous:

• Familiar foods

• Familiar systems

• Familiar buying behaviour

Made better upstream.

That is how change actually scales.

Smart hybridisation: How to scale impact before you scale volume

In food, “hybrid” is often framed as a product trend: part meat, part plant. But hybridisation is bigger than that. It’s a commercial strategy. It’s a way to scale a new ingredient into the mainstream without asking the market to take a leap of faith.

At early scale, the mistake most ingredient businesses make is trying to behave like a mature supplier too soon: chasing broad distribution, wide SKU coverage, and long tail customers before the product has earned its place in the system.

A smarter approach is hybridisation as a go-to-market strategy: blending focus with reach, direct sales with ecosystem influence, and proof points with scalable routes.

Because at our current scale, our advantage isn’t reach. It’s relevance.

This is how we turn relevance into adoption — and adoption into scale.

The problem with “distribution-first” thinking

Distribution looks like the obvious answer when you want growth. More customers, more listings, more visibility. But for early-stage ingredients, distribution-first often creates the wrong outcomes:

• you get listed but not used

• you become a SKU instead of a solution

• you lose the technical narrative to a portfolio manager

• you get squeezed on price before you’ve proven value

• you end up competing on availability, not performance

In other words: you gain reach, but lose control.

And for a new ingredient platform, control matters — because adoption is rarely a procurement decision first. It’s an NPD decision. A technical decision. A risk decision.

So the goal early on is not maximum reach.

It’s maximum pull.

Three pillars of a smart hybridisation strategy

#1 Direct sales to a small number of high-value customers

At early scale, direct selling isn’t a constraint - it’s a strategic advantage.

Direct relationships allow us to: Control the technical and innovation narrative around our ingredients. Not “here’s a spec sheet,” but “here’s how this solves your reformulation, nutrition, and cost problem.”

Work with NPD and nutrition teams, not procurement alone: Procurement can only buy what the system already understands. NPD can adopt what the system needs next.

Capture full value - product and technical input: Early customers aren’t just buying an ingredient. They’re buying speed, iteration, and application support.

Iterate quickly as we refine specs, formats, and applications: The fastest learning cycles come from tight feedback loops, not wide distribution.

Early collaboration creates stickiness: Because once your ingredient is designed into a product and validated in production, it stops being optional. It becomes infrastructure.

#2 One to two anchor customers as market proof points

Every scaling ingredient business needs proof - not in theory, but in the real world. Securing 1–2 credible anchor customers should be a priority because they do something distribution cannot:

They turn a “new ingredient” into a de-risked decision. Anchor customers enable us to:

Co-develop applications: This is where real lock-in happens. If we help build the format, we become part of the system.

Create volume stability and operating validation: A new ingredient doesn’t just need demand — it needs repeatable manufacturing, predictable performance, and consistent outcomes.

Provide reference credibility: A strong anchor case study shortens every future sales cycle. It answers the question every buyer asks quietly: “Has anyone like us made this work?”

In practice, one credible proof point is worth more than ten speculative conversations.

Examples of the right kind of anchors are businesses such as Tier 1 Producers - not because of brand glamour, but because they are operationally real: high-throughput, high-standards, and deeply embedded in mainstream consumption.

These are the customers that don’t just buy ingredients. They validate them.

#3 Ecosystem pull-through: create demand before distribution

The third pillar is the one most companies underestimate: influence.

Alongside direct sales, we should invest in “pull-through” across the wider food innovation ecosystem, including:

• product developers and technical consultants

• nutritionists and formulation specialists

• co-manufacturers and pilot plants

• accelerators, incubators, and innovation hubs

Why? Because ecosystems decide what becomes “normal.”

When your ingredient becomes a trusted reference point in these circles, you create a powerful shift:

Customers start asking for you by name.

That changes everything.

It changes the sales motion from persuasion to response.

It changes the commercial dynamic from “please list us” to “we need access to this.”

And when that pull exists, distribution becomes what it should be: a scaling tool, not a discovery tool.

Why this matters commercially

This hybridisation strategy is not just “nice positioning.” It’s margin protection and leverage-building in a market that punishes weakness. It allows us to:

• Protect margin during low-volume phases

• Early pricing should reflect value and support, not commodity expectations.

• Avoid being deprioritised inside distributor portfolios

Distributors are built to sell what already moves. New ingredients are often side-lined unless demand is already proven.

Build leverage before negotiating distribution

When you arrive with pull-through and proof points, you negotiate from strength.

Enter distribution at the right time

Not because you need validation, but because you need logistics and scale.

In short: we earn distribution.

We don’t depend on it too early.

Closing thought: scale is an outcome, not a starting point

The fastest way to lose momentum is to chase scale before you’ve built certainty.

Smart hybridisation is about sequencing:

• direct sales to learn and embed

• anchor customers to prove and stabilise

• ecosystem pull-through to create demand

• distribution to scale what already works

This is how you scale adoption before you scale volume.

Europe after peak: why the next era of food is about nutrition density, not volume

For most of our lives, the direction of travel has felt obvious.

More people.

More consumption.

More throughput.

Food systems were built in the shadow of expansion - scaling output, optimising for calories, and growing capacity to keep up with demand. The assumption was rarely questioned because the numbers kept rising.

But in Europe, that era is ending. Eurostat projects the EU-27 population will peak in 2026 and then begin a long, gradual decline. Meanwhile, Europe as a whole is already past peak population, with demographic momentum now shifting toward decline and ageing.

That matters because population growth has always been the quiet engine behind food demand. When the number of mouths stops rising, the fundamentals change.

Europe is now moving beyond peak food requirement - not in the sense that food becomes less important, but in the sense that the strategic challenge is no longer “how do we produce more?” It becomes: how do we nourish better, with less waste, less environmental cost, and more resilience?

The end of “more” - and the start of “better”

Peak population doesn’t mean food demand collapses overnight. But it does mean the growth story weakens, and a different set of pressures takes over.

Instead of expansion, Europe is entering a period defined by:

Ageing populations: Older consumers typically need food that supports muscle retention, metabolic health, digestion, and nutrient adequacy — often with smaller appetites.

Rising obesity and diet-related disease: Europe is now grappling with overconsumption and under-nutrition at the same time: too many calories, not enough fibre, protein, and micronutrient density.

Higher scrutiny of how food is made: Consumers and regulators are paying more attention to processing, ingredient lists, and whether modern food is optimised for health or just industrial convenience.

National food security and supply chain risk: The question isn’t just “can we feed everyone?” It’s “can we feed everyone reliably, affordably, and domestically enough to be resilient?”

In short: Europe’s food challenge is shifting from volume to nutritional quality, lower environmental impact, and security of supply.

Why “nutrition per bite” becomes the new metric

When growth was the dominant context, the food system optimised for:

• cost per calorie

• stable supply at scale

• palatability and convenience

• maximum yield from industrial processes

That model helped deliver abundance. But abundance has side-effects - and in a post-peak Europe, those side-effects become impossible to ignore.

As appetite declines (through ageing, lifestyle shifts, and even the rise of GLP-1 medications), smaller portions expose a big weakness in the current system: many foods are calorie-dense but nutritionally thin.

So the future isn’t just “less food.”

It’s more nutrition in the food we already eat.

That’s a fundamentally different innovation agenda.

The mistake: assuming consumers will change first

When the food system is under pressure, it’s tempting to put the burden on the public:

• Eat differently.

• Buy differently.

• Pay more.

• Learn new ingredients.

But behaviour change is a weak lever.

If people won’t reliably change their diets to improve their own health, it’s unrealistic to expect them to overhaul how they eat to reduce carbon emissions.

Which means the highest-leverage changes are upstream:

• reformulating everyday foods

• improving nutritional density quietly

• reducing reliance on imported and fragmented ingredients

• cutting waste and emissions at source

That is where system-level change actually scales

Post-peak Europe needs a different kind of food innovation

In an expanding world, the logic was often: grow more, process more, ship more.

In a post-peak Europe, the logic becomes: use what we already grow better.

That’s where UPP fits.

UPP’s model is built around a simple but powerful shift: capturing under-utilised vegetables and converting them into functional protein and fibre ingredients that integrate into mainstream manufacturing.

This matters because Europe’s future food priorities aren’t abstract. They’re practical:

• higher protein and fibre intake without asking consumers to “try harder”

• lower embedded emissions through better Scope 3 performance

• less waste and better utilisation of domestic crops

• reformulation that works inside existing factories, not just in innovation labs

From volume to value: low-friction reformulation

In the next era, the winners won’t be the companies with the most radical ideas.

They’ll be the companies that make change adoptable.

Because reformulation rarely fails due to lack of ambition — it fails due to friction:

• manufacturing disruption

• procurement risk

• allergen and regulatory complexity

• uncertain supply at scale

• sensory uncertainty

That’s why low-friction reformulation is becoming a strategic requirement, not a nice-to-have. UPP’s approach is designed around that reality: ingredients that work in real processes, at real scale, with real commercial constraints. Sustainability isn’t the goal - it’s the outcome

One of the most important shifts in a post-peak Europe is that sustainability can no longer be treated as a premium add-on.

It has to be built into efficiency.

When you reduce waste, shorten supply chains, simplify ingredient systems, and increase nutrition density, sustainability becomes a by-product of doing things better — not a marketing narrative that depends on consumer sacrifice.

This is what “future-proof” looks like in European food:

• less waste

• lower carbon

• higher nutrition density

• more resilient supply

• no behavioural trade-offs required

Food security becomes a design constraint, not a political slogan

As Europe moves into demographic decline, it would be easy to assume food security becomes less relevant. In reality, it becomes more relevant - because food security is not only about demand. It’s about fragility. Global supply chains can be efficient, but they can also be brittle. And as volatility becomes structural, Europe will increasingly value:

• regionally anchored inputs

• predictable supply

• traceability and compliance

• domestic resilience

UPP’s focus on under-utilised crops and regional supply logic aligns directly with that direction of travel.

The next phase of food in Europe

For decades, the food system has been running an “expansion playbook.”

Europe is now entering a different chapter: one where population growth is no longer the default context, and where the priorities are shaped by ageing, obesity, scrutiny, sustainability, and security.

This is not a crisis. It’s a reset.

And it changes the definition of success.

The future of European food provision won’t be won by producing more volume. It will be won by delivering:

• more nutrition per bite

• less environmental cost per kilogram

• more resilience per supply chain

UPP exists for exactly that future — improving food by changing what goes into it, not by demanding consumers become different people.

Quiet change. Upstream. At scale.

The system isn’t broken. It’s optimised.

There’s a popular narrative in food innovation that today’s food system is “broken” - too processed, too complex, too fragile, too far from nature.

It’s a satisfying story because it creates a clear villain and an easy solution: tear it down and build something new.

But that’s not how food works at scale.

The truth is simpler, and more respectful of reality:

The food system is optimised for affordability, safety, and scale - and those constraints shape ingredient choices.

If you want to change the outcomes, you need to start by understanding the optimisation.

Optimised for affordability

Affordability isn’t a marketing preference. It’s a social requirement.

Most food is purchased under pressure: time pressure, budget pressure, and often energy pressure. The system has been engineered to deliver calories, protein and convenience at a price that works - and that achievement is easy to overlook from the outside.

It’s also why certain ingredients dominate: they’re available, stable, predictable, and competitively priced across huge volumes.

Optimised for safety

Food safety is one of the greatest engineering successes of modern society.

In a world where products travel long distances, sit on shelves, cross borders, and enter millions of homes, safety has to be designed in - not wished for.

That reality shapes everything: manufacturing processes, specifications, microbial targets, packaging formats, shelf-life expectations, and the ingredient toolkits that make those outcomes possible.

Optimised for scale

Scale isn’t a “nice to have”. It’s what turns a good idea into something that actually feeds people.

When a manufacturer makes a product, they’re not making one batch for a launch event. They’re making thousands of tonnes with consistency, week after week, with minimal downtime and minimal variability.

That is why “perfect on paper” ingredients often fail in practice: they can’t handle the manufacturing environment, or they can’t be supplied reliably, or they introduce a new operational risk that no one asked for.

This is the heart of why change is hard - not because manufacturers don’t care, but because the system has been built to prioritise the things that keep food available and safe.

And it works.

The system delivered. Now the optimisation target is shifting.

It’s worth saying clearly: Manufacturers have delivered extraordinary safety, shelf life and affordability at scale.

That’s not the problem.

The problem is that the optimisation target is evolving.

Today, the system is being asked to deliver more, simultaneously:

Nutrition density, without changing formats people already buy

• Resilience, in the face of climate and commodity volatility

• Sustainability outcomes, without green premiums

• Simpler labels, without sacrificing functionality

• Stable supply, without adding complexity or risk

And the hardest part is this: the system can’t deliver those upgrades if the only options require a full redesign.

That’s why the next era of food innovation won’t be defined by disruption.

It will be defined by upgrade paths.

Why “disruption” is the wrong tool for food

Disruption works best when you can swap a system quickly.

Food doesn’t swap quickly.

Food has:

• qualification cycles

• sensory expectations

• retailer specifications

• regulatory requirements

• global supply constraints

• production lines designed for specific behaviours

• brands built on consistency

So when innovation arrives with a message like “start over,” the response from incumbents isn’t resistance - it’s risk management.

Because in food, risk isn’t abstract. Risk is:

• line downtime

• product returns

• quality escapes

• allergen exposure

• delistings

• margin erosion

• supply interruptions

That’s why the most scalable change tends to look “boring” from the outside.

It doesn’t ask the system to become something else.

It helps the system become better at what it already does.

The opportunity: incremental improvement that compounds

The most powerful improvements in food are often small per unit, but massive in aggregate.

A modest change repeated across high-volume products becomes meaningful:

• a little more protein here

• a little more fibre there

• a slightly simpler ingredient list

• fewer functional crutches

• a more resilient supply input

• a lower-footprint component in a familiar format

No single change needs to be perfect.

It needs to be compatible.

Because compatibility is what unlocks scale.

And scale is what unlocks impact.

What collaboration looks like in practice

At UPP, we don’t see ourselves as disruptors of food manufacturing.

We see ourselves as collaborators with it.

That means designing ingredients and supply models around the realities manufacturers face, including:

Compatibility over reinvention

Innovation doesn’t have to mean new product formats.

In many categories, the biggest wins come from improving the ingredients inside the products people already buy — without asking consumers to behave differently.

De-risking over disruption

A great ingredient isn’t just nutritionally interesting. It has to be:

• consistent

• specifiable

• manufacturable

• scalable

• supported with documentation

• resilient in supply

This is the difference between “promising” and “deployable.”

Supporting existing manufacturing

Food factories are highly tuned systems.

When you introduce an ingredient, you’re not just changing a recipe — you’re interacting with:

• hydration behaviour

• mixing and shear

• thermal stability

• shelf-life performance

• texture development

• yield and cook loss

• cost-in-use

Real-world reformulation succeeds when it respects those constraints.

That’s why we focus on being a practical upgrade: a way to improve nutrition and resilience without raising complexity.

A better framing for the future: upgrade the system we have

The future of food won’t be won by the loudest manifesto.

It will be built by teams who can deliver change that works in the real world:

• in procurement

• in QA

• in manufacturing

• in NPD

• in retailer conversations

• in consumer repeat purchase

That’s not a compromise.

It’s the only route to scale.

So instead of asking whether the food system is broken, a better question is:

What is it optimised for — and what should it be optimised for next?

Affordability, safety, and scale will always matter.

Now the next layer is clear: nutrition, resilience, and efficiency — delivered through incremental improvements that the existing system can actually adopt.

That’s the upgrade path.

And that’s the work.

Make Sustainability a By-Product of Efficiency: How Smarter Food Systems Outpace Traditional “Green” Narratives

In the global race to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build food systems that nourish a growing population, the biggest breakthroughs won’t come from ideological purity - they’ll come from operational excellence. At UPP, sustainability isn’t a slogan, it’s a consequence of doing things better, smarter, and more efficiently. That’s the insight at the heart of a new paradigm: making sustainability a by-product of efficiency.

Let’s unpack why this perspective matters — and what it means for nutrition, cost, and climate impact.

Efficiency First: The True Engine of Lower Emissions

Too many sustainability strategies start with what we should avoid - meat, dairy, methane, monocultures - and only then ask how we replace it. But this kind of substitution strategy often:

• Disrupts supply chains

• Raises costs

• Imposes cognitive load on consumers

• Requires behaviour change

• Delays real climate action

Contrast that with efficiency-led strategies: improve a system that already exists, reduce waste, and capture lost value.

Food is already produced at massive scale. Changing how we optimise that production - rather than tearing it down - delivers measurable greenhouse gas reductions now, not someday.

At UPP, this means transforming unused plant biomass - like broccoli side streams - into high-quality protein and fibre ingredients. These ingredients:

• Slot directly into existing food formulas

• Reduce reliance on high-impact proteins (like imported soy)

• Improve nutrition density

• Lower cost and carbon footprint

Because the ingredients integrate within existing products - they help manufacturers hit sustainability targets without reinventing their portfolio. That is sustainability as a by-product of doing the job smarter.

Efficiency Minimises Waste — Which Reduces Emissions

One of the biggest contributors to agricultural emissions is inefficiency across the food system - from farm to fork. In a world where up to ~30% of food is lost or wasted, inefficiency is literally burning emissions.

UPP’s approach tackles inefficiency by:

• Capturing side streams that otherwise rot and emit methane

• Producing ingredients that reduce the carbon per kilogram of food

• Delivering back value to farmers instead of leaving biomass unharvested

The result? A tighter, value-retentive production flow that reduces both direct emissions and embedded carbon.

Efficiency Improves Nutrition and Consumer Acceptance

Too many “green” foods fall into a trap: they’re sustainable only if consumers adopt them. But if consumers don’t buy them because of taste, price, allergens, or unfamiliarity, the environmental logic collapses.

Efficiency-led solutions like UPP’s ingredients deliver both nutrition and palatability because they are formulated to work inside familiar foods. They aren’t mission-driven replacements - they’re performance-driven enhancers that:

• Improve mouthfeel and texture

• Enrich protein and fibre

• Reduce overall product cost

• Keep ingredient labels clean, simple, and familiar

This lowers the barrier to consumer acceptance, which is essential if sustainability gains are to scale.

Cost Efficiency = Sustainability at Scale

From national policy to global supply chains, the biggest obstacle to sustainable food systems is cost.

Efficiency reduces cost. And cost reduction increases adoption.

At scale, that dynamic is far more powerful as a climate lever than niche “sustainable” products that cost more, require new behaviour, or depend on subsidies

Efficiency means:

• Lower production costs

• Lower consumer prices

• Lower marketing burden

• Faster adoption across existing food portfolios

And through this, a dramatic reduction in Scope 3 emissions - the lion’s share of food system GHG impact - becomes feasible.

Make Sustainability the Outcome, Not the Ordeal

If we frame sustainability as a burden — something we must tolerate — we’ll always fight an uphill battle. But if we reframe it as a benefit of doing things better — then companies can integrate it directly into their core business strategy.

Efficiency is an internal metric. It is measurable. It has direct economic value.

When sustainability becomes a by-product of efficiency gains — improved raw material use, less waste, stronger supply chains, better nutrition, lower cost — that’s when the food system actually decarbonises at the speed the planet needs.

At UPP, sustainability isn’t a marketing campaign. It is a natural outcome of smarter design and engineering across the food value chain.

The healthcare system is paying for poor diet. The food system has to become part of the fix.

Better food is no longer just a consumer proposition or a sustainability narrative. It is a healthcare cost issue, a productivity issue and, increasingly, a system design issue.

This is no longer a soft problem.

Poor diet is now one of the leading drivers of death worldwide. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimates that dietary risks were the fifth-leading global risk factor for early death in 2023, with 12.2% of all deaths associated with poor diet. The Lancet’s Global Burden of Disease 2017 analysis estimated 11 million deaths globally from dietary risks in 2017. [1][2]

That changes the frame. Diet is not a lifestyle side issue. It is core infrastructure for population health. [1][2]

The bill is already arriving.

In the United States alone, suboptimal diet has been linked to about $50.4 billion a year in direct cardiometabolic healthcare costs, or roughly $301 per person. In the underlying PLOS Medicine model, that equalled 18.2% of spending on heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes. [3]

And that is still a narrow estimate. A separate analysis estimated $7.44 billion in five-year direct medical costs for diet-attributable cancers diagnosed in 2015. Diabetes alone cost the U.S. $412.9 billion in 2022, equivalent to roughly $1.1 billion per day, and about one in every four U.S. healthcare dollars is spent on caring for people with diabetes. [4][5]

Obesity adds another nearly $173 billion a year in medical expenditure. At the same time, CMS estimates U.S. health spending reached $5.3 trillion in 2024 and is projected to reach 20.3% of GDP by 2033. The Rockefeller Foundation has argued that once hidden health, environmental and social costs are included, the true annual cost of the U.S. food system rises to at least $3.2 trillion. [6][7][8][9]

Put differently: healthcare systems are increasingly paying the downstream cost of a food environment optimised for convenience, consistency and throughput, but not reliably for metabolic health. [5][6][7][8][9]

The outcomes are becoming hard to ignore.

In the U.S., only 12.2% of adults met a stringent definition of optimal metabolic health in 2009-2016. By 2017-2018, only 6.8% of adults had optimal cardiometabolic health. A 2024 JAMA analysis found that almost 90% of U.S. adults met criteria for cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic syndrome stage 1 or higher. [10][11][12]

Current prevalence data point in the same direction: 40.3% of U.S. adults had obesity in 2021-2023; 115.2 million adults had prediabetes in 2023; and 40.1 million people were living with diabetes. [13][14]

Those categories overlap, so they should not be added together. But the signal is clear. Poor metabolic health is no longer marginal. It is normalised at population scale. [10][11][12][13][14]

This is why food is moving into healthcare.

The evidence base for food-as-medicine is no longer hypothetical. A 2025 American Heart Association systematic review of 14 U.S. randomised controlled trials found consistent improvements in diet quality and food security, while effects on biomarkers such as HbA1c, blood pressure and BMI were mixed but promising. [15]

Produce prescription evidence points the same way. A 2024 systematic review found consistent evidence for improved food security, mixed evidence for higher fruit and vegetable intake, and the clearest biomarker improvements in HbA1c among adults entering programs with elevated blood sugar. [16]

Real-world payment models are now starting to follow the evidence. In Massachusetts, Medicaid nutrition supports were associated with a 23% reduction in hospitalisations and a 13% reduction in emergency department visits. In North Carolina’s Healthy Opportunities Pilots, participation was associated with a decreasing spending trend after enrolment and lower emergency department visit trends. [17][18]

That is why reimbursement is no longer just being considered. Medicare Advantage plans are already allowed to offer food-related special supplemental benefits for eligible chronically ill members, and CMS now requires plans to support those benefits with relevant evidence. [19][20]

Better farming can help. But scale comes from better system design.

There is growing evidence that farming practice can affect food composition. A paired-farm U.S. study found that regenerative systems were associated with healthier soils and differences in nutrient density and phytochemical profiles. A major meta-analysis found that organic crops had, on average, higher antioxidant concentrations, lower cadmium levels and lower incidence of pesticide residues than conventional comparators. [21][22]

But the evidence is not strong enough to claim that regenerative or organic foods have definitively proven superior human health outcomes across the board. A 2019 systematic review concluded that direct clinical evidence remains limited. [23]

That distinction matters. Better production methods may be part of the answer. But population-scale health gains will not come from asking everyone to opt into a niche food ideology. They will come from improving the nutritional performance of the food system people already use. [15][16][21][22][23]

The opportunity is not to replace the system. It is to upgrade it.

This is where UPP’s "fork from farm" logic becomes commercially important.

• Start with what people actually buy: familiar formats, trusted categories, repeatable taste.

• Work backwards to better nutritional outcomes, rather than assuming consumers will adapt to supply.

• Increase the value captured from what farmers already grow by converting more under-used biomass into food-grade ingredients.

• Reduce friction for manufacturers by fitting existing formulations, specifications and supply chains.

• Improve nutrition density without requiring consumers to rebuild their lives around food.

The most scalable nutrition strategy is rarely the one that asks consumers to behave differently. It is the one that quietly improves the default.

That is the opportunity UPP is built around: working with farmers and food producers to turn more of what is already grown into ingredients that can improve nutrition density, functional performance and resource efficiency inside the products people already buy.

Don't replace the food system.

Upgrade it.

References

1. Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). Diet. 2025. Available at: https://www.healthdata.org/research-analysis/health-topics/diet

2. Afshin A, Sur PJ, Fay KA, et al.; GBD 2017 Diet Collaborators. Health effects of dietary risks in 195 countries, 1990-2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017. The Lancet. 2019;393(10184):1958-1972. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(19)30041-8

3. Jardim TV, Mozaffarian D, Abrahams-Gessel S, et al. Cardiometabolic disease costs associated with suboptimal diet in the United States: a cost analysis based on a microsimulation model. PLOS Medicine. 2019;16(12):e1002981. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1002981

4. Khushalani JS, Cudhea FP, Ekwueme DU, et al. Estimated economic burden of cancer associated with suboptimal diet in the United States. Cancer Causes & Control. 2022;33(1):73-80. doi:10.1007/s10552-021-01503-4

5. Parker ED, Lin J, Mahoney T, et al. Economic Costs of Diabetes in the U.S. in 2022. Diabetes Care. 2024;47(1):26-43. doi:10.2337/dci23-0085

6. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Adult Obesity Facts. Updated May 14, 2024. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/adult-obesity-facts/index.html

7. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. NHE Fact Sheet. Updated Jan 14, 2026. Available at: https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-reports/national-health-expenditure-data/nhe-fact-sheet

8. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. National Health Expenditure Projections 2024-33: Forecast Summary. 2025. Available at: https://www.cms.gov/files/document/nhe-projections-forecast-summary.pdf

9. The Rockefeller Foundation. True Cost of Food: Measuring What Matters to Transform the U.S. Food System. July 2021. Available at: https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/reports/true-cost-of-food-measuring-what-matters-to-transform-the-u-s-food-system/

10. Araújo J, Cai J, Stevens J. Prevalence of Optimal Metabolic Health in American Adults: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2009-2016. Metabolic Syndrome and Related Disorders. 2019;17(1):46-52. doi:10.1089/met.2018.0105

11. O'Hearn M, Lauren BN, Wong JB, et al. Trends and Disparities in Cardiometabolic Health Among U.S. Adults, 1999-2018. Journal of the American College of Cardiology. 2022;80(2):138-151. doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2022.04.046

12. Aggarwal R, Vaidya SR, Kondamudi NP, et al. Prevalence of Cardiovascular-Kidney-Metabolic Syndrome Stages in US Adults, 2011-2020. JAMA. 2024;331(18):1574-1576. doi:10.1001/jama.2024.6892

13. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. Obesity and Severe Obesity Prevalence in Adults: United States, August 2021-August 2023. Data Brief No. 508. Sept 2024. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db508.htm

14. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Diabetes Statistics Report. Updated Jan 21, 2026. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/php/data-research/index.html

15. Seligman HK, Angell SY, Berkowitz SA, et al. A Systematic Review of "Food Is Medicine" Randomized Controlled Trials for Noncommunicable Disease in the United States: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association. Circulation. 2025;152(4):e32-e46. doi:10.1161/CIR.0000000000001343

16. Harper Z, Verdezoto Alvarado A, Katz SE, et al. Examining Food Security, Fruit and Vegetable Intake, and Cardiovascular Disease Risk Outcomes of Produce Prescription (PPR) Programs: A Systematic Review. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior. 2024. doi:10.1016/j.jneb.2024.06.012

17. Hager K, Sabatino M, Williams J, et al. Medicaid Nutrition Supports Associated With Reductions in Hospitalizations and Emergency Department Visits in Massachusetts, 2020-23. Health Affairs. 2025;44(4):413-421. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2024.01409

18. Berkowitz SA, Archibald J, Yu Z, et al. Medicaid Spending and Health-Related Social Needs in the North Carolina Healthy Opportunities Pilots Program. JAMA. 2025;333(12):1041-1050. doi:10.1001/jama.2025.1042

19. eCFR. 42 CFR 422.102 - Supplemental benefits. Current through 2026. Available at: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-42/chapter-IV/subchapter-B/part-422/subpart-C/section-422.102

20. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Contract Year 2025 Medicare Advantage and Part D Final Rule (CMS-4205-F). Apr 4, 2024. Available at: https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/contract-year-2025-medicare-advantage-part-d-final-rule-cms-4205-f

21. Montgomery DR, Biklé A, Archuleta R, Brown P, Jordan J. Soil health and nutrient density: preliminary comparison of regenerative and conventional farming. PeerJ. 2022;10:e12848. doi:10.7717/peerj.12848

22. Barański M, Średnicka-Tober D, Volakakis N, et al. Higher antioxidant and lower cadmium concentrations and lower incidence of pesticide residues in organically grown crops: a systematic literature review and meta-analyses. British Journal of Nutrition. 2014;112(5):794-811. doi:10.1017/S0007114514001366

23. Vigar V, Myers S, Oliver C, Arellano J, Robinson S, Leifert C. A Systematic Review of Organic Versus Conventional Food Consumption: Is There a Measurable Benefit on Human Health? Nutrients. 2019;12(1):7. doi:10.3390/nu12010007

The question isn’t whether inulin works. It’s whether it still fits the moment.

For years, inulin has been an easy answer to a familiar formulation problem.

Need more fibre? Add inulin.

Need a better nutrition story? Add inulin.

Need help with texture, mouthfeel or sugar or fat reduction? Add inulin.

That logic still makes technical sense in many applications. But the environment around formulation has changed faster than the ingredient toolkit.

Recent scrutiny around how “real food” and “wholefood” claims are interpreted has highlighted something important for manufacturers: the issue is no longer only what an ingredient does. It is also how it is made, how easy it is to explain, how it appears on pack, and whether it fits a growing demand for food that feels less fragmented and less engineered.

That does not make this an anti-inulin argument.

Inulin remains a useful ingredient. It can support fibre enrichment, help improve mouthfeel, and play a role in sugar and fat reduction across a range of applications. But useful is not the same as future-proof. Performance is often application-specific, and like many isolated ingredients, inulin now sits inside a wider conversation about processing, simplicity and ingredient credibility.

That is why food manufacturers should start asking a different question: not just how to add more fibre, but how to improve fibre, formulation resilience and product credibility at the same time.

That is where UPP becomes interesting as an alternative.

Not because it is trying to out-inulin inulin.

Because it is solving a different and increasingly more valuable problem.

UPP’s approach is built around upcycled brassica ingredients designed to help manufacturers improve nutrition, support cost stability and strengthen sustainability performance without creating unnecessary label friction. Rather than forcing a disruptive rethink of production, the proposition is intentionally practical: ingredients designed to work with existing manufacturing systems, in formats that fit current operations.

More importantly, the ingredient logic is easier to defend in the current climate.

Where isolated fibres can increasingly attract questions around process and positioning, UPP offers ingredients that are closer to the language and logic of food. That matters. In a market where consumers, retailers and regulators are paying closer attention to how products are made, ingredients that still sound like food and behave like food have an obvious advantage.

There is also a formulation benefit in looking beyond single-function solutions.

One of the weaknesses of the modern ingredient stack is that too many products solve each challenge by adding another isolated fix. Fibre for nutrition. Something else for texture. Something else for binding. Something else again for water management. The result is often a more complex recipe, more pressure on cost, and a pack that feels harder to defend.

UPP offers a different route. Our brassica-based ingredients are not simply a source of fibre, but part of a more functional food matrix, helping manufacturers address multiple formulation needs with fewer compromises. That kind of multifunctionality matters more than ever, especially when technical teams are being asked to improve nutrition while procurement teams are under pressure to manage volatility and brand teams are under pressure to keep ingredient stories simple.

The supply-side story matters too.

UPP’s model is built on upcycling broccoli and brassica side streams that would otherwise be underused, turning them into spec-grade ingredients that support both cost and sustainability goals. For manufacturers looking to reduce waste, improve Scope 3 performance and build more resilient ingredient strategies, that is not a side benefit. It is increasingly part of the commercial case.

And that is the real shift.

The next phase of reformulation will not be won by the ingredient with the longest list of technical applications. It will be won by ingredients that solve several problems at once: improve nutrition, support functionality, fit existing operations, strengthen sustainability outcomes and still make intuitive sense to buyers and consumers.

Inulin still has a place. But the market is becoming less tolerant of ingredients that require a technical explanation to preserve a simple food story.

For manufacturers trying to build products that feel nutritionally stronger, commercially robust and easier to defend, UPP is worth considering not simply as a replacement for inulin, but as a better fit for where formulation is heading.

War doesn’t make alternative protein more important. It makes its purpose clearer.

There is a temptation, when a geopolitical shock hits, to ask whether alternative protein will “benefit”.

That is the wrong question.

Wars do not create clean opportunities. They create volatility.

And volatility reveals which parts of the food system were robust, and which parts only looked efficient when energy was cheap, shipping was smooth, and input costs were stable.

The Iran war is one of those moments.

Because when energy prices move sharply, the impact does not stop at the fuel pump. It runs through transport, refrigeration, fertiliser, feed processing, packaging, and industrial manufacturing. Conventional meat and dairy are deeply exposed to that chain. So are many crop systems that depend on synthetic inputs and long-distance logistics. What rises is not just cost. What rises is instability.

That matters for the future of protein.

For years, much of the sector was framed around climate, ethics, or consumer identity. Those things still matter. But energy shocks change the commercial story. In a more fragile world, alternative protein starts to look less like a lifestyle category and more like a resilience strategy.

The real shift is not ideological. It is structural.

When conventional protein becomes more expensive to produce, store, and move, the relative economics of alternatives can improve.

Not because consumers suddenly become more idealistic. Because the maths changes.

If animal protein prices rise fast enough, switching stops being a values-led decision and starts becoming a cost-management decision for households, foodservice operators, and manufacturers. That is a very different kind of adoption curve. It is usually faster, broader, and less dependent on persuasion.

But this is where the conversation needs discipline.

Alternative protein is not automatically insulated.

Plant protein businesses still depend on crops affected by fertiliser inflation. Fermentation businesses still depend on energy, equipment, and imported inputs. Cultivated meat businesses are especially exposed to power prices, process costs, and supply chain fragility around specialised materials. A geopolitical shock does not reward “alternative” by default. It rewards whatever can stay manufacturable under pressure.

That is why resilience matters more than novelty.

In food, the most important question is rarely “is this technically possible?”

It is:

• Can this be sourced reliably?

• Can this run in existing production environments?

• Can this hold margin when inputs move?

• Can this reduce dependence on fragile imports?

• Can this improve the system without asking the whole system to restart?

This is where a lot of the sector has to grow up.

The strongest businesses in the next phase may not be the ones making the loudest claims about replacing everything. They may be the ones building low-friction ways to reduce exposure inside the existing system: hybrid formats, ingredient-level substitution, regionally sourced inputs, better use of underutilised crops, and formulations that improve affordability and stability at the same time. That is where scale usually begins.

Food security is becoming a commercial category

Governments do not usually move fastest because of abstract sustainability language.

They move when supply security is at risk.

If conflict-driven energy and fertiliser volatility persists, protein resilience will increasingly be framed as strategic capacity: domestic production, reduced import dependence, more flexible ingredient systems, and food manufacturing that can tolerate shocks. That does not guarantee a wave of support for every startup. But it does strengthen the case for solutions that make national food systems less brittle.

This is the deeper implication of the Iran war for the sector.

Not “war is good for alt protein.”

That would be a shallow reading.

The better reading is that geopolitical stress is exposing how much of the global food system is still indexed to cheap fossil energy, concentrated inputs, and long supply chains. In that environment, the value of alternative protein is no longer just that it is different.

It is that, if designed properly, it can be more adaptable.

The winners will be the ones that solve for reality

The sector does not need more future-facing narratives detached from operating conditions.

It needs models that work when conditions deteriorate.

That means:

• fewer fragile dependencies

• simpler supply chains

• better fit with existing manufacturing

• stronger regional input logic

• better cost control under volatility

• products that help mainstream food get more resilient, not just more novel

Because in moments like this, the market does not reward aspiration alone.

It rewards reliability.

Final thought

The Iran war does not change the need for better protein systems.

It changes the reason they matter.

The case is no longer only environmental.

• It is operational.

• It is strategic.

• It is economic.

And in a world defined by shocks, the businesses that matter most will be the ones that make food systems less exposed, less wasteful, and less dependent on conditions that no longer look stable.

Automate the harvest. Lower the fertiliser. Rebuild the rotation.

Why the real prize from automating broccoli isn't faster picking — it's lower-input farming, better-fed soils, and protein that displaces fertiliser somewhere else entirely.

The real shift is not practical. It is structural.

Harvest automation is usually discussed as a labour story.

• Labour is scarce.

• Labour is expensive.

• Labour is unpredictable.

So we automate.

That framing is true. But it is incomplete. Because when you solve the labour problem in broccoli, the consequences do not stop at the field edge. They move through the rotation, through the ingredient system, and eventually into protein procurement.

And they show up somewhere most people do not expect: fertiliser demand.

That is where harvest automation stops being a farm-efficiency story and starts becoming an upstream lever for lower-input, more resilient food production.

The labour problem is real ... and measurable

The NFU's 2022 horticulture survey found that 40% of UK farms experienced crop waste due to labour shortages, with around £60 million of fruit and vegetables lost in the first half of that year alone. [1] More recent work in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture identifies "labour-intensive crops where adequate automation is currently unavailable" as a leading driver of unharvested produce in field vegetables, with primary-production losses ranging from 10% to 40% across the category. [2]

Broccoli sits squarely in that profile. It is high-value, but it depends on selective, multi-pass manual harvesting. Fields need repeated passes. Cooling and packing windows are tight. When labour availability fails, the crop fails commercially — even when it has not failed agronomically.

That changes grower behaviour.

Acreage becomes cautious. Rotations narrow. Broccoli stays concentrated in specialist regions. A crop that could earn its place in broader rotations becomes a labour-risk crop instead. [1][2]

Mechanical, single-pass harvesting changes that calculation — not only because it lowers harvest cost, but because it makes broccoli easier to plan. Predictable harvest. Lower labour exposure. More usable biomass. A stronger commercial reason to plant the crop in the first place.

Automation changes where broccoli can fit

If broccoli can only be grown where seasonal labour is available, the crop remains geographically constrained. If it can be harvested mechanically, the map changes.

That matters, because broccoli is agronomically more useful than its current narrow deployment suggests. It can fit as a cool-season vegetable crop. It can sit ahead of, or in rotation with, commodity row crops. On the right irrigated fields, near cooling and processing infrastructure, it can give farmers a higher-value rotational option.

Not everywhere. Not every year. Not without infrastructure.

But on the right acres, the crop can do something useful: give growers an alternative to repeating the same commodity sequence year after year because nothing else pays.

That is a regenerative point. Because regenerative agriculture is not only about adding practices. It is about making better rotations economically possible.

The fertiliser case starts in the rotation

Most fertiliser conversations focus on a single crop and a single field. Those questions matter. But they miss the system effect.

If automation lets broccoli enter more rotations, fertiliser use changes across the whole rotation — not only within the broccoli crop.

This is where broccoli's agronomy becomes interesting. Research by University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources in the Salinas Valley, conducted on commercial broccoli fields, found that broccoli roots reach down to 40 inches by the end of the crop cycle, and that in 9 of 10 sites studied, broccoli took up more nitrogen than was applied as fertiliser — scavenging residual soil nitrate that would otherwise have been at risk of leaching. [3]

That does not make broccoli magic. It does not turn it into a nitrogen-free crop — recommended seasonal N rates for broccoli still run between roughly 150 and 240 lbs/acre in California fertilisation guidelines. [4] But it does mean broccoli can capture residual nitrate from deeper in the soil profile than shallower-rooted crops like lettuce or spinach, putting nitrogen back into productive use rather than letting it leach. [3]

That is a fertiliser story. It is also a water story, a soil story, and a rotation story.

The rest of the plant makes the economics work

Agronomic value alone is rarely enough. Farmers do not plant theory. They plant crops that pay.

That is why automation and side-stream utilisation matter together.

A broccoli head represents a small fraction of the plant. Stems, stalks and leaves contain protein, fibre and structure. DEFRA figures, cited in the SusProt project announcement, estimate that more than 600,000 tonnes of broccoli plant mass goes unused in the UK each year — roughly 70–80% of the harvestable biomass, depending on the cut. [5]

Hand-harvesting cannot economically separate and recover that biomass at the cost, scale, and consistency food manufacturing requires. Automation can.

Once that happens, broccoli changes commercially. The head remains the primary vegetable product. The stem and stalk become contracted feedstock. The grower gains a second revenue stream. The processor gains a domestic ingredient source. And the crop becomes easier to justify inside a rotation.

Side-stream value does not just reduce waste. It improves the economics that allow broccoli to be planted more widely.

The fertiliser has already done its job

There is one more layer.

The biomass used for protein and fibre has already been grown. The land has already been used. The water has already been used. The fertiliser has already been applied — for the heads.

That makes broccoli-derived ingredients structurally different from ingredients grown as dedicated protein crops. Pea protein requires pea production. Soy protein requires soy production. Each tonne carries its own input history.

Broccoli-derived protein and fibre start from biomass that exists only because broccoli heads were being grown anyway. That does not make the ingredient input-free — extraction and processing have their own footprint — but it does mean no additional dedicated crop has to be grown to create the protein and fibre stream.

Life-cycle analysis carried out within the SusProt consortium estimates broccoli-derived protein at around four times less carbon-intensive than pea protein. [6] Carbon intensity is not the same metric as fertiliser intensity, but the two move together: synthetic nitrogen production is one of the most energy-intensive parts of agriculture.

When broccoli-derived ingredients displace higher-input alternatives elsewhere in the food system, some of the fertiliser demand associated with those alternatives is avoided. [5][6]

That is system-level fertiliser displacement. It does not happen through a single field-level calculation. It happens because one crop starts doing more work.

Regenerative agriculture needs commercial machinery

There is a tendency to talk about regenerative agriculture as if it is mostly a philosophy.

It is not.

It is also logistics. Timing. Markets. Machinery. And whether the grower can make money.

A more diverse rotation is only useful if the crop can be harvested. A break crop only works if someone wants to buy it. A lower-input plan is only credible when data shows where inputs can actually be reduced.

This is why harvest automation matters. It removes one of the largest commercial frictions preventing broccoli from being used more widely. Side-stream ingredient recovery removes another. Field-level data removes a third.

Together, they begin to turn broccoli from a specialist vegetable crop into a crop-system platform.

Data turns lower NPK from ambition into management

Reduced NPK use cannot be built on slogans. It needs measurement.

Automated harvesting creates a new layer of plant-level and field-level data. Combined over time with information from planters, weeders, weather, soil, varieties and geography, that data can support better variety placement, better yield prediction, better understanding of crop establishment, and better decisions about where fertiliser is actually needed and where it is not.

Lower input use is not about simply applying less. It is about applying better.

That is how automation moves from labour substitution to farm-system intelligence — and how lower NPK use becomes practical without asking growers to take on more risk.

Why this matters commercially

For food producers, the embedded fertiliser footprint of ingredients is becoming more visible. Scope 3 scrutiny is rising. Retailers are asking harder questions. Input volatility is no longer background noise — fertiliser markets are exposed to energy prices and geopolitics in ways they were not five years ago.

In that context, a domestic protein and fibre source recovered from an already-grown crop is not a niche sustainability claim. It is a structural advantage.

For growers, the argument is more direct. Automation can make broccoli easier to harvest. Side-stream utilisation can make it more profitable. Contracted demand can make it less risky. Rotation value can make it agronomically useful. Data can make it easier to manage.

That combination is what supports wider adoption.

Not automation alone. A stack.

What this means for UPP

Harvest automation is the foundation of UPP's model. But the reason it matters is bigger than labour.

It unlocks a different relationship between crop, rotation, ingredient and input use.

Better for growers, because broccoli can become a more predictable, higher-value rotational option. Better for farming systems, because more diverse rotations can support soil health, nutrient capture and lower pressure on NPK inputs. Better for manufacturers, because protein and fibre can come from biomass already grown for another purpose. Better for retailers and brands, because Scope 3 reduction becomes part of ingredient design rather than a separate offsetting exercise.

Better for the system, because the avoided fertiliser demand is not theoretical. It comes from using more of the crop — and from making better rotations commercially possible.

Closing thought

The labour case for harvest automation is easy to understand.

The fertiliser case is quieter.

The rotation case is bigger.

Once broccoli is no longer constrained by manual harvest economics, it can play a different role in farming systems. It can move beyond specialist production. It can enter selected rotations. It can support cover-crop-based and soil-health strategies. It can scavenge residual nitrogen. It can create more value from the same acre.

And when the whole plant is recovered, processed and used as protein and fibre, the fertiliser already invested in that crop does more work.

• Not just less waste.

• More function.

• Not just harvest automation.

• Rotation enablement.

Not just a better broccoli business.

A better crop system — with lower embedded inputs, stronger farm economics, and a clearer path to regenerative agriculture at commercial scale.

References

National Farmers' Union. NFU Horticulture mid-season labour survey results. August 2022. Available at: https://www.nfuonline.com/updates-and-information/nfu-horticulture-mid-season-labour-survey-results/

Gage RA, Terry LA, Falagán N, et al. Biological factors and production challenges drive significant UK fruit and vegetable loss. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. 2025. doi:10.1002/jsfa.13830

Smith R, Cahn M, Hartz T, et al. Using rotations to improve nitrogen use efficiency of cool season vegetable production systems. University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, Salinas Valley Agriculture Blog. 2018. Available at: http://www.ucanr.org/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=23791

Geisseler D, Horwath WR. Broccoli — Production and fertilisation guidelines. California Department of Food and Agriculture, Fertilizer Research and Education Program. UC Davis. Available at: http://geisseler.ucdavis.edu/Guidelines/Broccoli.html

UPP, James Hutton Institute, Agri-EPI Centre. SusProt: Sustainable Plant Protein from Vegetable Crop Sidestreams — Consortium announcement and DEFRA / UKRI grant. June 2023. Available at: https://www.proteinproductiontechnology.com/post/upp-leads-consortium-to-unlock-a-healthy-sustainable-plant-protein-source-from-the-broccoli-we-already-grow

UK Agri-Tech Centre. Automated broccoli harvester could help farmers with labour shortages — SusProt project life-cycle and environmental findings. February 2025. Available at: https://ukagritechcentre.com/news/automated-broccoli-harvester-help-farmers-labour-shortages/

Permacrisis is not the problem. Building for it is the answer.

People have stopped saying "when things get back to normal." The 2020s are the decade of omnicrisis, and the food system is where that decade lands hardest.

Brexit and the regulatory divergence of devolved nations. De-globalisation. Covid. Ukraine — first the energy shock, then the commodity shock. The Middle East — first the energy shock, soon the commodity shock. None of these are over. None of them happened in isolation. And none of them are the last shock the food system will absorb in this decade.

Layered on top: tax and administrative burden rising, customer expectations of immediacy and personalisation rising, retailer cost pressure rising, supply-chain reporting requirements rising, climate-related disruption rising, water and labour availability falling. The system is getting exponentially more complex while the people who run it are getting exhausted.

The biggest loss isn't margin. It's confidence.

Where confidence has gone first

The loss is most visible in the farming sector, and that's not an accident. Farming carries a temporal mismatch that concentrates risk in a way no other part of the food system has to bear: input decisions made twelve to eighteen months before output prices are known, weather risk borne entirely upstream, labour cost inflation outrunning farmgate price increases, and increasingly volatile demand signals from supermarkets that pass volatility downward without absorbing it.

This produces a perverse incentive. Farmers diversify away from food production at exactly the moment the system most needs domestic food production. Land use shifts toward solar, toward stewardship schemes, toward anything that pays predictably. Food production becomes the residual activity rather than the primary one.

Meanwhile the delivery system is fragmented. Growers, processors, manufacturers, retailers, foodservice operators all optimise for their own slice. There is no architect for the whole. Coordination, when it happens, happens informally between people who have known each other for twenty years — which works, until the people retire and the relationships don't transfer.

Why "cost vs resilience" is the wrong frame

The conventional response is to call this a trade-off. Resilience costs more than cost-optimisation. So either you pay for resilience and lose on price, or you optimise for price and accept fragility.

This framing is wrong, and it's wrong in a way that matters. The trade-off only exists if you accept the existing supply chain architecture as fixed. If you treat the architecture itself as the variable, cost and resilience can converge rather than diverge. Three observations explain why.

Cost is well-defined; resilience is not. Everyone in the supply chain can calculate cost down to the penny per kilogram. Almost nobody can calculate resilience with the same precision. We measure what we can quantify, and we systematically under-invest in what we struggle to. The first task isn't to choose between cost and resilience — it's to make resilience measurable enough that it appears on the same balance sheet as cost.

The cheapest meat is no meat. When food production fails, the cost is not the price differential between domestic and imported supply. It's the absence of supply at any price. The pandemic taught this lesson, briefly, before the system reverted to pre-pandemic optimisation patterns. The next shock will teach it again.

Resilience is a system property, not a company property. No individual business can be resilient inside a fragile system. Resilience is what the system delivers when its components are aligned. That means resilience can only be improved by changing the relationships between participants — not by any individual company spending more on contingency.

The "we are the system" argument

It's easy to blame structural forces. Brexit, geopolitics, climate, regulation. These forces are real, and they are not under any individual actor's control.

But the supply chain architecture that determines how those forces get absorbed is something the participants chose, and continue to choose, every day. We are the system. The system is what we permit. And the system is what we tolerate.

This matters because it puts the response back in our hands. If the system is something we are — rather than something that happens to us — then the response is not to wait for shocks to stop, but to redesign for them.

What redesigning for permacrisis actually means

Three things, in our experience.

First, defining the strategic advantages that are genuinely yours and leveraging them ruthlessly. Most food businesses try to compete across too many dimensions. The successful ones identify two or three structural advantages — geographic, technical, relational, financial — and build the entire commercial proposition around them. For everyone else in the supply chain, those advantages translate into reliability, which is the currency resilience trades in.

Second, focus on the outcome rather than the activity. Most operational planning works backwards from process: how do we run the existing system more efficiently. Resilient planning works backwards from outcome: what does the food on the plate need to be, and what's the simplest supply chain that delivers it consistently. The first question optimises for the past. The second one designs for the future.

Third, long-term relationships have to be part of the answer. The transactional contract — lowest price, swappable supplier, six-month renewal — is the mechanism by which volatility gets pushed down the chain to the most exposed actor. It's economically rational for the buyer in any given quarter, and structurally destructive over a decade. The systems that survive permacrisis well are the ones that have replaced transactional sourcing with multi-year commercial relationships where both parties bear some of the volatility and both parties share some of the upside.

Collaboration as architecture, not slogan

Collaboration is the most overused word in food systems writing. It mostly means nothing. People say it when they mean "I want you to help me with my problem."

Real collaboration in supply chains has three observable features. The participants align their incentives in writing rather than verbally. They build trust through small commercial commitments before making large ones. And the perception of fairness — not just the substance of fairness — is treated as a first-order design criterion. People do not stay in commercial relationships that feel unfair to them, even if those relationships are technically equitable on a spreadsheet.

This last point is under-appreciated. Fairness is a perception variable, not a financial variable, and most supply chain redesigns ignore it. Treating fairness as architecture rather than as garnish is what separates supply chain partnerships that survive a decade from the ones that fall apart in eighteen months.

We are, after all, all on the same island. All in the same boat. The decisions a food manufacturer makes about how to source ingredients shape what farming looks like on the same land where that manufacturer's workers live. The decisions a retailer makes about how to price ready meals shape whether the next generation chooses agriculture or chooses leaving. The system is reciprocal whether or not the participants behave as if it is.

The "big food" / "small food" balance

Markets require management. The bigger the business, the stronger the guardrails need to be. This is not anti-corporate — it's pro-functional-market. Concentration of market power creates fragility precisely when stability requires distributed capability. A food system with three buyers and a million sellers fails differently from a food system with three thousand buyers and a million sellers. The second one absorbs shocks; the first one transmits them.

The right answer isn't to dismantle "big food." It's to ensure "small food" has enough scale and protection to remain commercially viable alongside it. Diversity of business model — large industrial alongside regional artisan, vertically-integrated alongside networked, branded alongside private-label — is itself a form of system resilience. Monocultures fail catastrophically; diverse systems fail gracefully.

This is true in the field and true in the supply chain.

A note on data husbandry

There is a particular concern emerging that deserves direct attention. The food system is rapidly becoming a data system, and the lessons from other industries about what happens when data concentrates need to be heard before the same patterns establish themselves here.

Farmers will already be aware of the Uber pattern. A platform aggregates supply and demand. Initially both sides benefit because the platform reduces friction. Over time, the platform accumulates enough information about both sides of the market that it can use that information to extract a maximum economic tariff — pushing both producers and consumers to accept the minimum acceptable price at any given moment, while the platform captures the difference.

This pattern is not theoretical in food. It is already visible in some categories. Real-time pricing, dynamic procurement contracts, AI-driven yield prediction tied to forward purchasing — each of these technologies, deployed without governance, accelerates the concentration of information and the extraction of margin.

Data husbandry — meaning, who owns the data, who controls the analysis, who benefits from the insight — is the single most important governance question the food system needs to answer in the next five years. It needs to be answered by the participants, not for them by intermediaries.

What we are trying to do

At UPP we believe the response to permacrisis is to build infrastructure that makes the food system simpler, more reliable, and more locally-grounded — not more complex. Our specific contribution is small: we convert underused brassica biomass into specification-grade plant protein and fibre ingredients that allow major food manufacturers to reformulate existing products at lower cost, with reduced allergen complexity, with shorter supply chains, and with measurable Scope 3 reduction.

But the wider thesis is bigger than our specific products. It's that the way to navigate permacrisis is not to wait for stability to return. It's to build operations, relationships, and supply chains that work because of complexity rather than despite it.

Shocks have come. More are coming. The question is whether we have built businesses that absorb them, or businesses that transmit them.

Are we prepared?

How will we respond?

The choice is to struggle on, or to embrace the opportunity. The first response treats permacrisis as something happening to us. The second one treats it as something we are designing for. Only the second one is durable.

The next era of food. The work happens upstream.

There is a temptation to read each new retailer announcement as an isolated update. More value. More innovation. More personalisation. More sustainability.That misses the point.

What the major UK and European retailers are actually describing — across multiple updates over the past two years — is a shift in the operating model of food. The next phase of retail will not be won by suppliers offering cheaper ingredients, stronger claims, or another layer of complexity. It will be won by suppliers who can help the system move faster without making the customer experience worse.

That distinction matters, because the food system is now under pressure from every direction at once: cost-conscious customers, availability targets, manufacturer margin, rising health expectations, Scope 3 audit, and supply chains tested by climate, labour, geopolitics and volatility. And now GLP-1s are changing how people eat — not in theory, but in baskets, in portions, in protein choices, in fibre demand, in the basic question of what food has to do for people.

The market is in a holding pattern

Consumers haven't abandoned value, convenience, or familiar formats. But they are reassessing what food needs to deliver.

That's the tension. People want food that is affordable, familiar and easy. They also want food that supports better health, feels more credible, and doesn't ask them to compromise on taste, texture or availability.

For retailers, that creates a difficult equation. Better food cannot become a premium niche. Health cannot become a separate aisle. Sustainability cannot rely on customer sacrifice. And reformulation cannot break the product.

So the real question becomes: how do you upgrade the food system without asking shoppers to experience the disruption?

The answer sits upstream

This is where suppliers matter more than ever.

Retailers cannot solve Scope 3 from the shop floor. They cannot reformulate every product from the shelf edge. They cannot deliver healthier defaults if the ingredients going into food are still optimised only for cost, bulk, shelf life and repeat purchase.

The work has to happen earlier — in crops, in specifications, in ingredient systems, in processing, in how side streams are valued, in how manufacturers reduce additives, increase nutrition, protect quality and maintain affordability at the same time.

That is not a communications challenge. It is an infrastructure challenge.

Protein and fibre are not trends. They are signals.

The recurring retailer focus on protein and fibre matters — not because either is new, but because both reveal what the next phase of food is really about: nutrition density.

GLP-1s didn't create that need. They exposed it. An ageing population needs better protein. A fibre-deficient population needs more fibre in everyday foods. Health-conscious shoppers need products that deliver more per calorie. Manufacturers need ingredients that improve the nutritional profile of existing categories without turning every reformulation into a technical project.

That is why protein and fibre are becoming system levers. Not just claims. Not just front-of-pack language. Functional inputs. Quiet upgrades. Better defaults.

Reformulation has to become lower friction

Food businesses do not need more theoretical innovation. They need innovation that survives procurement, QA, factory trials, retailer approval, sensory testing, cost pressure and repeat purchase.

That is the real filter. Can it work in existing processes? Can it reduce complexity rather than add it? Can it support cleaner labels without creating allergen issues? Can it improve nutrition without changing the eating experience? Can it help with carbon without relying on offsets? Can it scale?

This is where many good ideas fail. Not because they are wrong, but because they ask too much of the system too soon.

The retail direction now points to a different kind of supplier value: ingredients and partnerships that make change easier to adopt. Not louder. Easier.

Sustainability is becoming a supplier action, not a retailer slogan

For years, sustainability sat comfortably in brand language. Targets. Pledges. Reports. Commitments.

That era is ending. Scope 3 moves the pressure into the supply chain — and that means retailers need suppliers who can do more than talk about impact. They need suppliers who can evidence it, measure it, reduce it, and build it into the ingredient itself.

That is where Life Cycle Analysis stops being a sustainability document and becomes a commercial tool. Because if a supplier can show lower impact, secure supply, credible traceability and practical reformulation value, they are not just helping a retailer meet a target — they are reducing system risk.

Circularity is moving from nice idea to competitive advantage

Circularity is often treated as a sustainability concept. Use more of the crop. Waste less. Close loops. Do the right thing.

But in a more volatile food system, circularity is also a resilience strategy. If more of the crop becomes useful food-grade input, supply improves. If side streams become functional ingredients, waste becomes value. If ingredients can come from existing agricultural outputs, the system gets more efficient without needing a new food universe.

The principle is straightforward. Take broccoli as an example: using the whole crop across fresh, frozen and ingredient supply is not a marginal idea — it is exactly the kind of systems thinking food retail now needs. The crop does not stop being valuable when it falls outside one specification. The question is whether the supply chain is intelligent enough to use it.

Waste is not a moral failure. It's a design failure. And it is solvable.

The future supplier is a systems partner

Retailers increasingly say they want to be more strategic partners for their suppliers. The reciprocal is just as important. Suppliers now need to become more strategic partners for retailers.

That means recognising each step in the chain — farm, harvest, processing, ingredient functionality, manufacturing, retail execution, customer experience, carbon, nutrition, cost, availability — not as separate problems, but as one connected system.

The suppliers who win will be those who can help retailers deliver better food with less friction. Healthier products without compromise. Lower carbon without fragility. Cleaner labels without technical risk. Innovation without disruption. Resilience without extra cost.

Why this is exactly what UPP is built for

UPP is not trying to invent demand for something the food system does not need. We are responding to what the system is already asking for.

We work upstream — turning under-utilised brassica biomass that would otherwise be left in fields or diverted to low-value pathways into food-grade protein and fibre ingredients that integrate into mainstream manufacturing. The crop is already grown. The nutrition is already there. What's been missing is the infrastructure to convert it into something manufacturers can actually use, at scale, with procurement-grade documentation, allergen clarity, and traceability.

That is the same whole-crop logic the most forward retailers are now describing — applied at the ingredient layer. More protein. More fibre. Cleaner functionality. Lower-carbon inputs. Better use of crops. More resilient supply. Reformulation that works inside real manufacturing constraints. And food that improves without asking the customer to notice the machinery behind it.

Closing thought

The message coming from retail to suppliers is not complicated: help us make food better, but do it without breaking what customers already rely on.

Better health without higher friction. Sustainability without weaker availability. Innovation without losing value. Reformulation without compromising taste. Circularity without complexity.

The food system does not need more pressure. It needs better tools.

The suppliers who provide them will not just support the next phase of retail. They will help define it.

Less than £1 for the food. The school meal is now a system design problem.

Funding has not kept up with what schools are being asked to deliver — and the gap is no longer something operators can close on their own.

England's school meal funding is now £2.61 per child. The real cost of delivering a quality two-course meal sits closer to £3.45. Wales pays 79p more, Scotland 69p more, Northern Ireland 49p more.

Roughly half of the £2.61 is consumed by staffing and overheads. That leaves under a pound for the actual food on the plate — at a moment when food inflation, wage increases, National Insurance rises, energy costs and the expanded Free School Meals roll-out are all moving in the wrong direction at once.

The conversation is starting to shift toward where it should have been all along: indexed funding, universal primary free school meals, and a coordinated industry voice. Those are the right reforms. But while the policy debate plays out, schools and caterers are having to subsidise meals from budgets meant for building repairs, IT and pastoral support. That is not a sustainable position. And the operational efficiencies that have absorbed cost pressure for the last decade are now exhausted.

The shelf-edge response is running out of room

For most of the last ten years, the cost-pressure response in school catering has been the same response it has been across the wider food system: smaller portions, cheaper inputs, longer shelf life, more bulk fillers, more processed components. That arithmetic worked for a while. It is not working any more — and the food children are eating is increasingly the variable that gets cut.

That is not a moral failure on the part of school caterers or operators. It is the predictable outcome of asking the same operating model to absorb compounding cost pressure year after year without changing how the food is delivered.

The work has to move upstream

Cost cannot be solved at the serving counter. Nutrition cannot be solved at the till. The shelf-edge response in school catering is now identical in structure to the shelf-edge response in retail: there is no margin left in operations to cut, and the only honest answer is to change how the ingredients themselves are sourced and used.

That is an upstream problem.

It means rethinking how crops, side-streams and existing agricultural outputs are converted into the ingredients that go into school food. It means asking what proportion of the food currently on the plate could be replaced — invisibly, without changing taste or texture — with ingredients that deliver more nutrition per pound, lower carbon, fewer additives, and supply-chain resilience. It means treating school food as an ingredient infrastructure problem rather than a kitchen-discipline problem.

More nutrition per pound is not a slogan — it's the only honest answer

The shift the wider food industry is making — toward nutrition density rather than calorie density — applies more sharply to school food than anywhere else. Children need protein and fibre. They need ingredients that carry the nutritional load without carrying additives and allergens that increase compliance complexity for kitchens already running under pressure. They need food that tastes good enough to be eaten rather than thrown.

The same low-friction reformulation principles that apply in mainstream retail apply in school catering, with one important difference: the budget per portion is far tighter and the consequences of getting it wrong are felt by children whose nutrition matters most. That makes the case for upstream reform stronger, not weaker.

The whole-crop opportunity

A meaningful share of the broccoli, cauliflower and brassica crop grown in the UK never enters the food system — not because it isn't nutritious, but because it isn't economically integrated into downstream demand. The same is true of many other crops grown for retail specification.

Converting that under-utilised material into food-grade protein and fibre ingredients does three things at once: it lowers the cost of the nutritional load; it reduces Scope 3 emissions associated with the meal; and it improves the resilience of the supply chain feeding institutional catering at a moment when that supply chain is under structural strain.

This is not a future option. It is one of the few levers left that can move the underlying economics of a school meal in the right direction without asking the policy environment to fix everything first.

Where UPP fits

UPP is built around exactly this principle. We work upstream, turning under-utilised UK and Spanish brassica side-streams into non-allergenic, non-novel protein and fibre ingredients (Prota, Fiba, Bynda) that integrate into mainstream manufacturing — the manufacturing layer that feeds school catering as much as it feeds supermarket shelves. The crop is already grown. The nutrition is already there. The infrastructure to convert it is what we have built.

We are not the answer to the funding gap. The funding gap needs the policy reforms that Kanpla and others are rightly calling for. But while that conversation plays out, manufacturers and caterers feeding institutional food systems do have a lever to pull — and that lever sits in the ingredients, not at the serving counter.

Closing thought

A £2.61 school meal does not need another efficiency drive. The kitchen has run out of room. What it needs is better ingredients arriving at the kitchen door, wherever possible from British Farms — ingredients designed from the outset to deliver more nutrition per pound, with the documentation, allergen clarity, and sensory performance that institutional catering actually requires. Fork from Farm.

The policy reform conversation matters. But it is not the only conversation. The other conversation — the one happening upstream in crops, side-streams and ingredient systems — is where some of the cost pressure can be relieved without waiting for Westminster to act.

It is pragmatic. It is operational. And increasingly, it is the only honest response to the room that has run out.

What 70 alternative-protein casualties tell us about the next era of food.

Between September 2024 and April 2026, the alternative-protein sector lived through its first real shake-out. Green Queen's running register documented 40+ closures, bankruptcies, liquidations and distressed M&A events between September 2024 and August 2025. By February 2026, GFI's analysts were citing 60+. Add in Believer Meats, Meatable, Yves Veggie Cuisine, Allplants, Wild Earth and the others that have closed or been wound down since, and the count is approaching 70.

The temptation is to read this as a sector failing. We don't think it is. We think it's a sector being re-priced. And the re-pricing has something specific to teach about how the next era of food will actually be built.

Three risks underwritten as one bet

Capital markets supported the alternative-protein category in 2020–22 by underwriting three independent risks as if they were a single thesis.

Process-biology risk. Sterility, contamination, titer, yield, downstream processing. Whether the biology would actually work consistently at industrial scale.

Plant-based meat-analogue category-demand risk. Whether consumers would adopt the meat-replacement category at the scale and speed the funding rounds had assumed. US plant-based meat retail sales fell 7% in 2024 and unit volume fell 11%. European numbers tracked. The downstream channel that most fermentation start-ups were ultimately selling into compressed.

Capex-to-cash-flow conversion risk. Whether the bioreactor builds and pilot facilities would convert into operating cash before follow-on capital was needed. In a 2021 funding environment, follow-on was abundant. By 2024 it wasn't.

A company built around any one of these risks could survive. A company built around all three simultaneously — which describes most fermentation-route alt-protein businesses — could not survive a contracted funding environment. The casualty register is not a list of companies that executed badly. It's a list of companies whose underwriting model didn't hold once capital markets started pricing the risks separately.

The five canonical cases

Five collapses are doing most of the explanatory work in industry conversations, and they're worth understanding because each names a slightly different failure mode.

Mycorena (Sweden, biomass mycoprotein). ~€35M raised. Discontinued large-scale factory project June 2024 after Series B failed to close. Acquired by VEOS-subsidiary Naplasol the next month. Founder Ram Nair's diagnosis to the trade press was the canonical chicken-and-egg trap of capex-stage fermentation: investors will not back the factory without binding offtake; partners will not sign offtake without proven production. Stuck companies fail there.

Motif FoodWorks (USA, precision fermentation). $345M raised. IP litigation with Impossible Foods over heme-protein patents. Settled September 2024 with each side bearing its own costs. Wind-down notice within days. The deeper question, framed by industry sources at the time, was whether precision fermentation can move from creating a strain to commercialising it at the right titer, the right yield, and the right application — and whether there is an actual customer at the end of that journey.

Planetarians (USA, solid-state fermentation upcycler). $6M+ raised. Schools and foodservice channel, claimed 72% acceptance, repeat purchases. Could not bridge from foodservice unit economics to retail margins. IP and assets auctioned August 2025.

Arkeon (Austria, gas fermentation). $13M raised. Filed for insolvency June 2025. CEO Gregor Tegl's own postmortem to AgFunderNews — unusually candid — identified five compounding factors. The line worth keeping: the sector got hooked on technologies that produced new things, and forgot the customer.

Meati Foods (USA, biomass mycoprotein). $365M–$450M raised. 7,000-store distribution. 130% YoY distribution expansion in 2024. Breached a financial covenant in February 2025; lender Trinity Capital swept available cash overnight as a technical default. Assets sold for ~$4M in May 2025. A 99%+ wipe-out for late-stage equity. Industry sources close to the board described the outcome as a bank-induced crisis rather than a commercial failure.

The composite reads cleanly. Process biology is hard. Capex scale-up requires offtake. The downstream meat-analogue category contracted. Litigation tax. Debt-covenant fragility. All of it true. None of it surprising once you see it laid out.

What's underneath the casualty list

It's possible to read the register as a story about bad luck, bad timing, or bad markets. We don't think that's quite right either.

Read together, the cases describe a category that bet on consumers changing — and on capital staying patient while consumers changed. Both bets were structural mistakes.

Beyond Meat's CEO Ethan Brown, announcing the rebrand to “Beyond” in March 2026, told Fortune the moment for plant-based meat had passed. That's the mature version of the bet that didn't pay. Quorn's revenue down £186.7m in 2024. Yves discontinued. Hooray Foods, Nowadays, Sunfed, Allplants, Plant & Bean, Meatless Farm — the meat-analogue retail and DTC layer has been compressing since 2023, and the compression isn't a blip. It's a structural reset of consumer adoption against pre-2022 forecast.

Cultivated meat has it worse. Funding peaked at $989M in 2021. 2024: ~$55M. 2025: ~$65M. Believer Meats had FDA approval, USDA approval and a 200,000 sq ft North Carolina plant cleared for commercial sale. They never entered commercial production. They filed for bankruptcy in December 2025 with $225M in debt. Industry observers reading the news called out the bitter irony: every regulatory and infrastructure box ticked, and still no commercial future. The trifecta wasn't enough.

The pattern that matters isn't that these companies failed. It's that the surviving cohort — Planetary in Switzerland raising CHF 22M in early 2026 on an explicit “control the full value chain” thesis; the strategic acquirers who are buying the wreckage at 1–2% of capital raised — are operating from a different model. Vertical control. Lower capex per unit of output. Non-novel regulatory paths. Functional ingredient channels rather than category-creation channels. Customer-pull rather than capital-runway as the primary risk-management mechanism.

Where the consolidation is actually going

The acquirer base for distressed alt-protein platforms in 2025–26 tells you something the funding numbers don't.

Vegetarian Butcher: Unilever to JBS-Vivera. Loma Linda: Atlantic Natural Foods to Century Pacific. Kate Farms: to Danone. Raisio's plant-protein business: to Valio. Mycorena: to Naplasol, a subsidiary of Belgian animal-protein producer VEOS. The buyers of distressed alt-protein platforms are now mainstream meat, dairy and food incumbents — not other VC-backed players. This is mature-category consolidation, and the multiples reflect it.

For founders and operators in the space, that's a meaningful signal about what the next wave of value creation is going to reward. Companies positioned as inputs to incumbent food production, on incumbent margin and quality structures, are being underwritten by the buyers who matter. Companies positioned as alternatives to incumbent food production are being repriced as distressed assets.

What we believe — and what the casualties evidence

This isn't an article we'd be writing if we didn't have a structural view about what the next era of food looks like.

We believe the food system isn't broken. It's optimised. Optimised for cost, convenience and throughput, not for nourishment. The casualties above don't change that thesis — they confirm it. Every one of those companies was trying to add a new optimisation target (alternative-protein sustainability, novel functional ingredients, consumer-facing meat replacement) on top of an industrial system that was already optimised for something else, and trying to do it with new biology, new regulatory exposure, new consumer behaviour, and new capital structures all at once. The system absorbed the cash and gave most of it back as distressed assets.

We believe consumers shouldn't have to change. The system should. The plant-based meat-analogue category compression is the cleanest evidence in the register that consumer-behaviour-change theses don't scale at the price points that were assumed. Beyond Meat's 95% market-value decline, plant-based unit volume falling 11% in 2024, the long list of meat-analogue closures from Yves to Hooray to Allplants — these are not failures of execution. They are evidence that the bet on changing what consumers ask for at the till has a low ceiling.

We believe the next era of food will be built upstream. Not with new diets, but with new inputs. The companies in the casualty register that came closest to a survivable model — Planetarians on schools-and-foodservice, Mycorena on partner offtake, Motif on functional ingredients to existing manufacturers — were all attempting an upstream-input strategy, but trying to do it on top of fermentation biology and novel-food regulation. The strategy was right. The biology and the regulatory tail were the problems.

We believe upcycling is infrastructure. When you control feedstock, processing and agronomy, you control the future. The Planetarians lesson is the most direct: upcycling spent yeast or seed cake from someone else's process is a powerful product story but a fragile commercial one. You cannot control feedstock continuity, you cannot fix the price, you cannot expand. The companies emerging from the wreckage in 2026 are the ones that own the field-to-ingredient vertical.

We believe the future of food is built on better ingredients, not better intentions. The alt-protein category that's now being repriced was sold partly on intention — consumer intention to eat sustainably, investor intention to back transformative biology, founder intention to displace meat. Intention is not infrastructure. The companies surviving the shake-out are the ones whose ingredients improve foods that consumers already buy, on margins that manufacturers already operate, on regulatory pathways that already exist. That's not a less ambitious thesis. It's a more deliverable one.

The honest read

We don't write this from a comfortable position. Every operator in adjacent ingredient categories is under-resourced relative to the size of the change they're trying to make. The companies in the casualty register were, in many cases, run by serious people doing serious work. Their failure is not their incompetence — it's their position relative to a category-wide repricing.

But the repricing is real, and the lessons are specific. The next decade in food will be built by companies that:

• operate inside today's regulatory framework rather than racing approval clocks,

• supply functional ingredients to existing manufacturer channels rather than creating new consumer categories,

• own enough of the upstream — feedstock, harvest, processing — to fix continuity and cost,

• match capex to demonstrated commercial pull rather than to capital-runway optimism,

• and treat capital structure as part of the risk model rather than a financing afterthought.

Some of this is hindsight talking. Most of it isn't. The five composite failure modes — capex-without-offtake, novel-food regulatory tail, meat-analogue downstream contraction, debt-covenant fragility, IP litigation drag — were all visible to anyone reading the right reports in 2022. They were just not the lens through which the 2021 funding rounds were being underwritten.

For UPP, the casualty register is not a story about competitors. It's evidence that the structural choices we made — non-novel ingredient base, mechanical extraction not fermentation, integrated harvest-to-processing vertical, drop-in functional inclusion at 4–30% rather than category-creation, modular replication rather than monolithic capex — are choices that read differently in 2026 than they did in 2022.

In 2022 they would have looked unambitious. In 2026 they are the structural specification of what survives.

What this isn't

A few things this article deliberately is not.

It isn't a victory lap. The companies in the register were doing real work, their failure was painful for the people who built them, and their pain is not our credibility. The right way to read these closures is as expensive industry learning — paid for, in many cases, by people who lost their savings, their jobs, or their belief in their own thesis. We've taken the lessons from them. We owe them a clear-eyed reading, not a self-congratulatory one.

It isn't an argument that fermentation, mycoprotein or cultivated meat won't matter. They will. The biology is real. The use cases are real. The companies that emerge from this winter — Planetary, Better Meat Co, ENOUGH if it survives the going-concern qualification, Nosh.bio, ProteinDistillery, the survivors of the cultivated cohort once the capital winter ends — will likely build durable businesses on the back of disciplined post-mortems of the casualty register. The category isn't over. It has been re-shaped.

It isn't a claim that UPP has all the answers. We have a thesis and we have an operating model. We have BRCGS Grade A on first audit, ISO 9001:2025, an LCA below 0.25 kg CO₂e/kg, an institutional partner network and a commercial pipeline that's converting. Those are facts. The thesis is still being tested in market. The 70 casualties of the last 18 months are evidence that even the strongest-funded players in this space can fail in ways that look obvious only in retrospect. We hold our position with humility about the difficulty of doing any of this well.

What the casualty register has clarified is that some structural choices age better than others, and that the alt-protein shake-out has surfaced which choices those are. The article you're reading is our attempt to set down what we think the lessons are, in a register that respects the people who paid for them.

The future of food is built upstream. With non-novel ingredients. On existing channels. By companies that control their own feedstock, run on disciplined capital, and improve foods consumers already buy.

Not better intentions. Better ingredients.