As consumers pay more and more attention to sustainability, hunger, and the environment, few areas can benefit from this shift like upgrading recycled food.

According to a study by Future Marketing Insights, the food waste business is valued at approximately US$46.7 billion in 2019, and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 5% over the next ten years. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that 30% to 40% of the food supply in the United States is wasted.

Molly Laverty, senior manager of environmental and social governance at Del Monte, said that all fruits and vegetables that the company works with produce certain by-products, from fruit pieces that are too small to peach pits. The company formed a team in 2019 to find ways to reuse products that would otherwise become waste, and is in talks with other members of the Upgrade Food Association to see if they can use any remaining ingredients from Del Monte.

"We are definitely also considering other categories," she said. "This is not something we want to stop paying attention to."

This fruit and vegetable products company has been working to find new uses for food that would otherwise be discarded. Del Monte donated chopped peaches and pears to Feed America. It is also considering using pineapple juice or syrup for packaging its products in its fruit cups, which contain popped boba as a natural sweetener.

For green beans, Del Monte estimates that it redirected about 600,000 pounds last year, otherwise these green beans will be fed to animals or turned into compost. The vegetables were not packed in standard mung bean pots because they were too short or they were cut wrong when the stem tips were removed. 

Laverty said that upgrading is "absolutely" good for the bottom line, noting that it can save time and money in meeting with farmers, breeding or fertilizing and watering.

She said that Del Monte first chose mung beans for the upgrade recycling certification because it is one of the company’s largest production volumes—usually processing more than 420 million cans per year—and “we want to have the greatest impact.” 

According to Forbes, upscale recycling advocates say that the use of upcycled raw materials can help reduce more than 70 billion tons of greenhouse gases that are generated by food loss and waste.

Even during a pandemic, sustainability and food waste are still consumer concerns. Companies such as Imperfect Produce and Full Harvest have grown as they attract audiences who are interested in buying products that are traditionally considered "substandard" for various reasons, including excess, failure to meet strict retail standards, and Arrived in the container at the wrong size. Do Good Foods has developed a closed-loop system to convert agricultural products and meat that cannot be sold in grocery stores or used by food banks into nutritious animal feed. 

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During a busy year of construction, projects took place across the country, but they seemed to be concentrated in a few key states.

A review of 13 companies that have passed traditional IPOs or merged listings with SPACs since July 2020 shows that, except for one of the listed companies, the transaction price of all companies is lower than their initial listing price.

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