S5 Ep7: How Certifications Give Upcycled Food Products a Deeper Meaning Daniel Kurzrock
“As a planet, we should be eating all the food we’re producing.” — Daniel Kurzrock
One of our favorite inspiring changemakers, Daniel Kurzrock, is in the house! It's been a while since we've had the pleasure of hearing from him and the exciting developments at ReGrained.
In this episode, Daniel shares the new products they’ve launched, new partnerships they’ve made, and new projects they’re working on. Of course, the conversation will not be complete without a discussion on upcycling.
We know that our food system is broken. Yet, until now, we're still doing just enough to keep the problem at bay. We're not just talking about how it's made up of huge corporations who care more about their bottom line than they do about the food we eat. But, we're also looking at how this affects our health and our environment.
We need a better food system in order to build a better world. If we want to create a sustainable world that supports us all and doesn't leave anyone behind, then we have to start by changing our approach to food production and consumption. With upcycling, we can help reduce food loss and conserve resources in a fun and exciting way, while also being intentional about what we eat and the impact it has on the environment.
Listen in as Justine and Daniel explore bigger opportunities available to us in the upcycling arena. Daniel also shares their approach and methods to impact the food industry on an individual and industry level, how certification gives broader meaning to upcycled food products, and how we can go beyond what we know today to be guilt-free.
If you want to learn more about Daniel and the mission of ReGrained, you can check our past conversations with him here:
How to Build an Organization for a Healthier and More Sustainable Food System
EI UPDATE SERIES: ReGrained's Recent Partnerships & New Product Launches
Connect with Daniel:
Daniel Kurzrock is the Co-founder and Chief Grain Officer/CEO of ReGrained and a founding executive board member of the Upcycled Food Association. ReGrained is an ingredient platform and packaged foods innovator specializing in upcycling overlooked and undervalued ingredients. Dan is also an entrepreneurial systems thinker and loves tackling seemingly intractable problems through creative entrepreneurship and cross-sectoral collaboration. Through ReGrained, he has become a thought leader about food waste business models, "edible upcycling" and the circular economy for food.
Episode Highlights:
01:30 A Huge Opportunity in Food Waste
06:26 The Regrained Pledge
12:27 The Regrained Approach
17:26 Upcycling Going Bigger
Resources:
Podcast
Tweets:
This week, Daniel Kurzrock, Co-founder and Chief Grain Officer/CEO of @ReGrained returns to our EI stage with @jreichman to share exciting news and development on how the upcycled food movement is now going bigger. #podcast #entrepreneurship #socialgood #inspiration #impactmatters #NextGenChef #EssentialIngredient #Regrained #upcycling #upcycledfoodmovement #upcycledcertified #foodloss #regenerativeagriculture
Inspirational Quotes:
01:40 “Our mission is to better align the food we eat with the planet and people we love.” -Daniel Kurzrock
01:46 “As a planet, we should be eating all the food we’re producing.” -Daniel Kurzrock
02:38 “We’re here to help build a food system that can do more with less.” -Daniel Kurzrock
14:34 “Hopefully people will continue to make more informed choices because they now have a bigger pool to choose from.” -Justine Reichman
16:39 “The worst thing people can do is make a choice just because they’re told to, or because it’s out of fear of lack of information.” -Justine Reichman
16:52 “You’ve got to open minds to make changes happen.” -Daniel Kurzrock
Transcriptions:
Justine Reichman: Welcome to Essential Ingredients, I'm your host, Justine. Today with me is Daniel Kurzrock who is the Chief Grain Officer at ReGrained.
Welcome Daniel, it's great to be back with you.
Daniel Kurzrock: Hey, thanks for having me back, Justine. Good to be here.
Justine Reichman: It's always good to have you. It's always great to hear what's going on with you at ReGrained. I always see things on Instagram and Facebook of what's going on, but I'm just excited to hear from you what you have going on? What's new, and what's next at ReGrained?
Daniel Kurzrock: Well, we have been very busy at ReGrained. Everything that we're doing just to ground, anyone who's listening about what we're up to here, it's all about reducing food waste. So we have this mission to better align the food we eat to the planet and people we love.
Justine Reichman: What I want to do is I want to ask you again before we get into this for everybody else, maybe you could share with everybody what ReGrained is because we always get new listeners. We have a lot of people that are loyal listeners, but we do get new listeners. So for those people that are new and maybe not familiar with you and ReGrained and maybe their first time, maybe we could share with them what ReGrained is.
“Our mission is to better align the food we eat with the planet and people we love.” -Daniel Kurzrock
Daniel Kurzrock: Absolutely. So ReGrained is a food company focused on creating ingredients from food supplies that have otherwise been overlooked and undervalued. Our mission is to better align the food we eat with the planet and people we love. And the thesis is pretty, pretty straightforward. We think that as a planet, we should be eating all the food that we're producing. Crazy thought, right Justine? And so I got my start in this, I was making beer, I was doing that as a college student, using a lot of grain to make beer. For those who don't know, it's about one pound for every six packs of beer. There's quite a bit of grain. The beer is just taking the sugars found, there's all this delicious nutrition that's left behind that can be used to make bread, pastas and all kinds of things. And so we developed a process to create a new ingredient from that, and then we work with other companies on bringing products, new products to market, new breads and things like that using our ingredients. In the past, we've launched some of our own products into retail stores. Products like nutrition bars and puffed healthy chips, which for us is all about just flexing our kind of innovation muscle and showing what's possible out there. But we're really here to help build a food system that can do more with less. We put a lot of resources into growing foods and processing foods that don't end up being consumed, and this waste is a huge opportunity. We're trying to use our business as a force for good in tackling that opportunity.
“As a planet, we should be eating all the food we’re producing.” -Daniel Kurzrock
Justine Reichman: So that those people that might not have realized that they know who you are, because you were originally after somebody that created and innovated this bar, can you share with them a little bit about that bar because they might be familiar with it. It's been in so many stores.
Daniel Kurzrock: It's certainly possible. Great to hear from folks who have enjoyed that product. The first product we ever made was a nutrition bar and we did free start with first two flavors, and then three flavors of individually packed bar which we put in compostable packaging initially, which is a whole other story that we won't get into today. And the goal of that product was not for us to become this big bar company/ Although that would have been cool, I guess. We're not opposed to it, but the objective was to introduce this new ingredient, this barley that's already been used to brew beer that's gone through this regraining process where we created what we call SuperGrain+, the ingredient. So taking SuperGrain+ and putting it in a format that people can enjoy and see how it tastes, what the nutritional value is, everything, it was like a proof of concept for us. And so yeah, that bar, we kept to the market for a couple of years. And then the other product that we launched was like a bag of chips. They're called puffed, we had five flavors of them. Really fun flavors like Mexican street corn, and Texas pit style barbecue, and urban garden, which we wanted to show that you could make snacks with this ingredient, and also those snacks could be very healthy and delicious without even knowing anything about the mission. If you remember this, it was--
“We’re here to help build a food system that can do more with less.” -Daniel Kurzrock
Justine Reichman: I do. I remember that I got a box above, all the different flavors. We've tried the ball and we had just, in the cup last recent years moved back from Mexico City so I was really excited about the Mexican corn.
Daniel Kurzrock: Yeah. I mean a lotay is an incredible flavor profile and we were stoked to honor it in our own way there. I don't remember this, but it was 100 calories for 39 chips. It was incredibly, a voluminous snack product, I guess. You could say relative to nutrition and also have a good source of fiber in that serving. We saw it as a way to show what the next generation of going beyond guilt free and towards snacks that you feel good about, and how we can help unlock that for food companies that were interested in inactivating that opportunity. And so, yeah, that's what some folks are familiar with ReGrained from our retail brands, which we're not doing that anymore. But it was an important way for us to help get the word out about what upcycling is, what brewers grain is and why it has so much potential.
Justine Reichman: Yeah. I think that it's interesting because you originally launched this as a student when you were in school, and it was mission driven, it was all about upcycling, and you took that, and then you created these products. And now, you're still on that same mission to upcycle, but it's expanded, it's grown, it's evolved. And so now, you're working even further to build a brand that not only creates the snacks, but of your own innovations, but now you're working with other companies. I'd love for you to talk a little bit about that and tell us what you're working on.
Daniel Kurzrock: Yeah, for sure.
Justine Reichman: Well, this is a real expansion. It's not a rebrand, it's an expansion of what you're doing.
Daniel Kurzrock: Yeah. We've been articulated as a kind of the commercial realization of what we've always wanted to do, which is to say that our objective is to make a difference at scale. There's tens of billions of pounds of this grain in the denominator of what's available in the US. One pound of grain for a six pack of beer. There's 9,000 breweries, give or take, in the US. Massive amounts of this supply. Meanwhile, you've got single digit numbers of Americans that are getting a fiber in their diet, for example. For us, the logical way to make a more meaningful business come to life. So we've actually, just recently, publicly pledged that our company is going to upcycle a minimum of 10 million pounds of food by 2025.
Justine Reichman: Wow, that's a huge amount.
Daniel Kurzrock: It is, but it's also not enough.
Justine Reichman: That's enough. But what does that mean for you as a company? What do you have to do to make that happen?
Daniel Kurzrock: So we're talking about working with a number of national brands that are going to launch products into stores that use our ingredients, like that's the type of scale that represents. And so the way that we're working now is we have a few different ways that we get products developed using upcycled ingredients. We often will work directly with a brand. Think of a brand that you walked into the grocery store and you see, we'll be in touch with their innovation teams and working with them on developing product applications that they can use with their own company. We also have some partnerships with companies that are suppliers to other companies. So what's really cool about this is we can work with one of ours. It's been publicly announced, it's called Torotos. They're a Belgian company, they specialize in bakery, patisseries like sweet baked goods, as well as chocolate. They're a multibillion dollar family owned business headquartered out of Belgium, and we have partnered with them to really unlock the bakery segment for SuperGrain+ in North America. So we're working together with other end customers who I can't name yet but we're actually developing new breads for them to launch and funds and different types of products like that. So it's really exciting for us about these partnerships. We get to work with people that are really experts in their field. (inaudible) is like the leader in bakery innovation on a B2B level.
Justine Reichman: What's your timeline on that?
Daniel Kurzrock: We started, we announced our collaboration a couple months ago, it's been about six months that we've actually been formally working together. And these b2b projects, they can take two, three years to launch. So we have some that are--
Justine Reichman: My other questions, because then we would never be able to let everybody know, and I'd never be able to publish this podcast.
Daniel Kurzrock: You just gotta know what's coming. And what's nice is that with these products, a lot of people are gonna have the word Regrained on them. You'll be able to see like, hey, the better difference here is that these upcycled SuperGrain+ from ReGrained are powering this new bakery innovation. So that's been a really exciting way to work with folks. And then another example working with suppliers to other companies is there's a number of firms out there that produce, for example, pizza crust for foodservice. So not all places make theirs, I hate to break it to anybody. Not every restaurant makes their own food, just food service operators, just a place where you order food, they don't always make their pizza crusts, for example, in house. They may purchase that from partially baked and frozen from another supplier or as a dough ball. There's different stages of the process for something even as simple as you would think, like pizza crust. And so what we're able to do is work with the companies that are making those and help them develop new innovations that use our products. And so then again, while it's always helpful to have an end customer in mind, for example a foodservice chain that could launch a pizza, we can untap the entire pizza opportunity potentially by working with these manufacturers and making it easier for people who sell pizza to make and sell pizza to incorporate ReGrained into their products. So we're really strategically looking at this as an ecosystem, which is a very overused term. I hate to sound like I'm just using a term that's trendy, but it really is the most accurate description of how we think the food system should work where there's stakeholders at every level, the value chain. Yeah, sorry.
Justine Reichman: I'm sorry. No, I was just saying you really pinpointed and you've gone straight to the source. You have the most direct routes and have the greatest opportunity to have the greatest results.
Daniel Kurzrock: Yeah, that's for sure.
Justine Reichman: That's what it sounds to me. In my head, I'm sitting here going, oh, well, if you go to that manufacturer, maybe you can also get all the airlines.
Daniel Kurzrock: Everything is connected.
Justine Reichman: And you're not just going to one person and just getting this subset. You're working with the biggest entity, and then you're letting them do all the sales.
Daniel Kurzrock: We're working together with them to create as big of a pie, if you will, to continue the analogy as possible, because it's good for everybody.
Justine Reichman: It's a win, win, win.
Daniel Kurzrock: Yeah. And there's probably six more wins that we could attach on to that. Count like the planet, the community and everything that we're trying to do as a result of this system. It's all about implementing systems thinking and redesigning our food system works, which is pretty freakin broken if you look at it objectively.
Justine Reichman: I also think that it also allows people, these people making the decision to make a more informed choice. You've given them another choice, you've given them the choice to get something that is better for them, better for the planet, better for their customer, better for everyone.
Daniel Kurzrock: Yeah. And I think what's the other thing that's really powerful about this approach is that we get to know, and we think our company is, there's companies and there's people that like, companies are made up of people, right? And so through this process, we're working with teams of people. And we have the opportunity on an individual level also to shift thinking or to at least give a nudge in a direction that was probably inevitable anyways, as you look at just the cold hard facts of our planet and the situation that we're in. And so we have this opportunity to hopefully get people thinking and this new framing of circularity which involves upcycling is a piece of it, but not exclusively. We can get them thinking about circularity, we also have an opportunity to talk about regenerative agriculture and crops that actively sequester carbon. No, we're not in the business of growing Kernza, for example, or distributing it, or anything to do with that. But it's all a part of the same better food system that we're hoping to try to build. Through this model of engaging in a very consultative way throughout the innovation process, we can kind of teach these things out in a way that we hope will make a broader impact.
“Hopefully people will continue to make more informed choices because they now have a bigger pool to choose from.” -Justine Reichman
Justine Reichman: And also, I think that working within the Upcycling Association and having the relationships and bringing them all together, hopefully, people can connect and collaborate, and then further that connection, and bring people into the fold so that when you're doing this, you can bring other partners into it to expand this way of thinking. And then hopefully, people will continue to make these informed choices because they now have a bigger pool.
Daniel Kurzrock: Right. And I think one of the most exciting things about the Upcycle Food Association as far as what that organization has put forward, for those of you who are listening and aren't familiar with the Upcycled Food Association, it's an industry nonprofit, comprised of member organizations like ReGrained, we were one of the founding members and as a board officer for a couple of years to create like a center of gravity for this upcycled food movement. And there's about 200 companies that are involved now. It's only been a couple of years. It's really an awesome and impressive entity. And about a year ago, the upcycled certification was released which offers a really next level tool for communication, to your point Justine, about an education tool. So now, there are products already on the grocery store shelves today that have an upcycled certified logo on it. That means it met a third party standard for those independently reviewed and just something being certified as organic or non GMO on that level. And increasingly more products are getting certified every month and it's creating this common identity that also plays to earn trust and transparency, with, or I guess demonstrate transparency to earn trust of the end customer. Something isn't just saying, oh, yeah, we've always been using bruised apples to make apple juice. But now we can call it upcycled apple juice, right? You don't want that. That makes the term mean nothing. I think just that kind of a worthy detour in our conversation.
“The worst thing people can do is make a choice just because they’re told to, or because it’s out of fear of lack of information.” -Justine Reichman
Justine Reichman: I think so, and I think my mission when I have these conversations with founders, like yourself, is to share the information and give you that platform to be able to communicate and share your story so that others, whether its founders or end consumer, so that they can make more informed choices whether they're building a new business or whether they're buying food off the shelves. Because I think the worst thing people can do is make a choice just because they're told to, or because it's out of fear, or lack of information.
Daniel Kurzrock: Yeah. People like me really appreciate what people like you do because you've gotta open minds to make these changes happen. And yeah, thanks for providing the forum for that to happen.
“You’ve got to open minds to make changes happen.” -Daniel Kurzrock
Justine Reichman: Oh, well, I'm grateful for you to be changing the trajectory of what is available for these companies to be able to have access to. So now, there's gonna be more options for people and we just have a platform to share so that people know what you're doing. I'm so glad. Is there anything else that is going on that you can share to our audience and our listeners of what's new and what's next at ReGrained?
Daniel Kurzrock: One of the things that's new that we haven't publicized too much yet, but I'm happy to share it is we have this opportunity not only to use our technology to develop new ingredients which we're doing things from outside the beer industry, for example, that have opportunity. We're also now partnering with companies that have developed really unique supply chains using maybe their own, it's not always technology, maybe it's like a processing method that preserves the shelf life of something, good example is with an interesting product that is made from the leaves of the coffee plant, it's kind of like a tea. This company has developed a beverage they sell commercially, and we're working together with them on B2B applications for that. So again, it's like that same mission of, how do we do this at a bigger scale? Where are the points of leverage within the food system? Part of what's new for us is that our enterprise is not limited. We're really looking at systemically like what are we leaving off the table? And how can we play a role in closing that loop? And it's hard work, but it's something that we get really energized about.
Justine Reichman: Keep us posted on how things progress because it's always fun to hear what you're up to. I always look forward to try your new products. I gotta tell you, I was talking to our Chief Content Officer, Meghan, who just yesterday had the brownies and was raving about. I said, can we share it because, oh, no, I was in bed. Her partner made them. I was like, come on.
Daniel Kurzrock: Well, there's three other mixes. There's the carrot cake, banana bread and the pizza crust. And yeah, that's fun, we just launched a limited release of those a month or so ago. It's only online. And people love them. Maybe we'll make more, maybe we won't. The point is to show the innovation.
Justine Reichman: A little pressure there. So if we don't order them, we can get them because you may sell out and there may be no more.
Daniel Kurzrock: Right. I think that's a fair translation.
Justine Reichman: Order now. All right, well, if anyone's interested and they want to learn more about ReGrained or find the product, where do we send them to?
Daniel Kurzrock: Just look up ReGrained, you'll find us. We made up the words, really good on it. And yeah, okay, connecting on LinkedIn is always great, especially for others in the industry. We can find a time to connect with you and your team and kind of demystify this whole upcycle food opportunity, and we're looking forward to the next chapter to get it.
Justine Reichman: Awesome. Thanks again everyone for joining me here on Essential Ingredients, and we'll see you here next week.
