At Daisies in Chicago, Executive Chef and Owner Joe Frillman strives to use as much of each ingredient as possible.
To that end, his team at the Italian concept frequently uses byproducts from one dish in other offerings. One example is Daisies’ Mushroom Margarita, made with tequila, lime and fermented mushrooms. The cocktail repurposes ingredients used in Mushroom Ragu, the best-selling item on Daisies’ menu.
Portobello stems left over from the ragu are fermented, and that fermented liquid goes into the cocktail. But process doesn’t stop there. The fermented stems are then dehydrated, turned into a powder and used to rim the glass, a touch that adds a sort of “umami, bright, salty twang” to the drink, Frillman says.
Upcycling—repurposing byproducts that would traditionally be thrown away—isn’t a new concept. In fact, many chefs use the philosophy behind upcycling in everyday practices. But it’s one that’s getting more of a spotlight as consumers put increasing pressure on restaurants to take action on food waste.
And it’s going beyond the kitchen, too, showing up in manufactured products like those from Upcycled Foods Inc., which turns spent grain created during beermaking into baking mixes, pastas and more.
“Upcycling for a chef, is a new term for a very old idea. Like a classically trained chef will take their veggie scraps and make a stock with them,” said Daniel Kurzrock, CEO of Upcycled Foods. “This idea of doing more with less is not new.”
A competitive edge
From tracking and prevention tools to apps, there are many solutions operators can use to prevent and reduce food waste, which can keep food costs down and also be a customer draw.
"[When it comes to] restaurants, specifically, Innova Market Insights found that, in 2021, 63% say they would like to eat at a restaurant that actually reduces food waste,” said Kurzrock. “In other words, consumers care, and they understand that their food choices and their waste reduction efforts make a direct impact on drawing down the climate crisis.”
At Daisies, the ethos leans heavily on sourcing locally, eating seasonally and using the best ingredients. The restaurant relies on local partnerships, including one with Frillman’s brother, who owns a local farm, to accomplish this goal. In addition, the team regularly preserves ingredients through fermenting and pickling to ensure excesses of product don’t go to waste.
“If we can use a tomato and we can sell the tomato three different ways on three different dishes, but it’s the same product that we’re bringing in, that’s beneficial for our bottom line, we want to approach it that way,” he said.
Upcycling also allows Frillman to charge more for dishes due to the amount of labor that goes into them.
In addition, he often purchases produce that would have gone to waste otherwise. While this has environmental benefits, it also allows him to score discounts.
One year in late October, Frillman got a call from his fruit purveyor, who had five pallets’ worth of cider that had already spoiled. Frillman bought all of the spoiled cider at a lower price and turned itinto apple cider vinegar.
“Then, for the next five years, we had apple cider vinegar that we made that we put on tap,” he said. “It was delicious. We put it … over ice, we put it in cocktails, put it on the menu.”
Another example of reuse in action is Daises’ herb soda, which is made from stems of herbs used in the kitchen. The stems are turned into a simple syrup used to make the soda, which is cross-utilized as a base for cocktails.
“It doesn’t matter necessarily that it’s the most pristine piece of tarragon or parsley or whatever that you’re using,” he said. “The pretty peaches aren’t going into the peach kombucha; it’s the kind of beaten-up rotten ones.”
Frillman believes that upcycling gives Daisies a competitive advantage in the industry, especially in terms of employee retention, as it provides chefs and cooks with the opportunity to develop their skills with an emphasis on high ingredient utilization.
“We’re the type of place where we feel like if you come here, you’ll be able to learn a lot of skills in one place that you might not necessarily be able to kind of obtain other places,” he said. “For us, it’s kind of a competitive advantage; we use it as an asset.”
Upcycled ingredient suppliers
On the purchasing side, upcycled products create a unique opportunity to reduce food waste outside of a single waste stream, according to Kurzrock.
“A chef is able to make an impact on the greater issue of food waste at large, external to their own operation,” he said. “Because, internally, restaurants are probably quite good at making the most of what they have. Here the opportunity is to go beyond that.”
One of the products Upcycled Foods offers is ReGrained SuperGrain+, which can be used in a variety of applications, including breads, crusts, pastries and sweets.
“So, we’ll work with a manufacturer of pizza crusts, for example, on developing pizza crusts that are made using the ReGrained SuperGrain+ product. Which is made from grain that a brewery has already used to make beer,” Kurzrock said.
It takes about one pound of grain to make a six-pack of beer, according to Kurzrock. And to produce the pound of grain takes over 300 gallons of water. The ReGrained SuperGrain+ product helps give that grain a second life.
The idea behind Upcycled Foods came from Kurzrock’s days of making beer in college.
“It seemed like I was making big batches of porridge, basically, and then throwing it away. So, I tasted it, it tasted good. I looked into it; it had a lot of nutritional value,” he said. “So, I started making bread and selling that bread to friends, in order to brew for free.”
Overcoming obstacles
A challenge to upcycling can be marketing, according to Kurzrock.
“There are some questions as to how to communicate this to the end customer,” he said. “You don’t want to yuck the yum of the end customer.”
One way to introduce upcycled products is to launch them as an alternative rather than a substitute for existing products. In addition, Kurzrock recommended that operations test new products through seasonal offerings.
“A lot of times the hardest thing is going from zero to one,” he said.” There’s always a risk in launching new products.”
While upcycling is becoming a trend, foodservice has yet to catch up with retail in this area. One potential reason, Kurzrock noted, is the storytelling possibilities available through packaging. Branding products in a restaurant can be more difficult.
Upcycled Foods has a couple of foodservice-oriented products that have been ready for the market for a couple years, but the process of getting them into the market has been challenging, Kurzrock said.
“To get into large-scale commercial foodservice, there’s a lot of consolidation around distribution. So, you need to have a product that is available to procurement teams, whether they purchase from US Foods or Sysco or Sodexo or Compass or another,” he said. “There’s a lot of players in the middle of the food value chain that people don’t really think about … before [an item] even ends up on a menu.”