The Challenge

Agrifood systems produce about one-third of all human-made greenhouse gas emissions, reaching 16.5 billion tonnes of CO₂-equivalent in 2023 (FAO, 2025).

In 2022, retail, food services and households wasted 1.05 billion tonnes of food, almost one-fifth of all food available to consumers (UNEP, 2024a). Food loss and waste generate 8-10% of global emissions, almost five times as much as aviation (UNEP, 2024a), and take up 28% of the world's farmland (UNEP, 2024b). Food waste contributes to climate change and environmental degradation in two ways: its decomposition in landfill releases methane, a gas 84 times more potent than CO₂ over a 20-year period (UNEP, 2025), and it wastes the energy and resources used to produce the food in the first place (UK Parliament, 2024). 

Manufacturers are a significant source. The EU generated 57.9 million tonnes of food waste in 2024, 19% of it from food and drink manufacturing (Eurostat, 2026). In the UK, manufacturing produced 13% of the 10.7 million tonnes of food wasted in 2021 (UK Parliament, 2024).

When apples are pressed for juice, about a quarter of the fruit's weight is left as pulp, or "pomace", which is mostly used as animal feed or discarded (Zaky, Witrowa-Rajchert and Nowacka, 2024). The EU's food use hierarchy ranks preventing food waste at source first, followed by redistributing surplus food for human consumption, then using food no longer intended for people as animal feed, with industrial use, recycling and nutrient recovery, energy recovery and disposal ranked lower (De Laurentiis et al., 2024). New rules also require Member States to cut food waste in processing and manufacturing by 10% by 2030 (European Commission, 2025).

A Circular Solution

Nibs Etc is a UK brand that makes granola and crackers from upcycled apple pomace (Nibs Etc, n.d.a).

When apples are pressed for juice or cider, the liquid is bottled. Everything else (skins, cores, stems and pips) becomes pomace. According to the company, most of it ends up as animal feed, in anaerobic digestion or waste-to-energy plants, or at worst in landfill (Nibs Etc, n.d.b). When pomace is landfilled, the energy, water and land used to grow the apples are lost with it (Nibs Etc, n.d.b).

Nibs Etc keeps this material in the human food chain. It collects pomace from a family-run juice and cider presser in Kent, under food-safe conditions, with quality controls from collection through to baking (Nibs Etc, n.d.b). The pomace is mixed with selected ingredients and slow roasted in small batches in England (Nibs Etc, n.d.a). Because most of the fruit's sugar leaves with the juice, the pomace is high in fibre and low in sugar. It also adds a natural fruity sweetness, so no refined sugar is needed (Nibs Etc, n.d.b). This is upcycling rather than recycling. Instead of breaking the by-product down, Nibs Etc turns it into a product of greater value than it started as (Nibs Etc, n.d.b).

Nibs Etc’s range now includes three granolas, and three cracker options. Its products are sold through Whole Foods Market, Ocado, Selfridges and online (Nibs Etc, n.d.a). Because the apple pomace changes with the seasons, no two batches are quite the same (Nibs Etc, n.d.a). The model has also had to adapt. When Covid wiped out its juice-pulp supply overnight, the company launched "Emergency Mixes", reformulated its products and rebuilt its range (Nibs Etc, n.d.a).

Environmental, Social and Economic Impact

Nibs Etc's environmental benefits come from both its ingredients and how its products are made. Its apple pulp is grown, pressed and collected in England (Nibs Etc, n.d.b), and its products contain no palm oil (Nibs Etc, n.d.b). Its cracker packaging is free of petrochemical plastic, with a certified home-compostable film and a recyclable card box printed with water-based inks (Nibs Etc, n.d.c).

The same by-product brings benefits for the people who eat it. UK adults aged 19–64 eat around 16 g of fibre a day, far below the recommended 30 g, and only 3–4% of people aged 11 and over meet the target (Derbyshire, 2026). Apple pomace is naturally rich in dietary fibre (Zaky, Witrowa-Rajchert and Nowacka, 2024), and Nibs Etc's crackers contain 8 g of fibre per 100 g (Nibs Etc, n.d.c). While the company does not suggest that its products can address the fibre gap on their own, it presents them as one way to help consumers increase their fibre intake (Nibs Etc, n.d.b).

The brand won Cotswold Fayre's Young Food and Drink Entrepreneur of the Year and the first WeWork Creator Award (Nibs Etc, n.d.a).

Replicability

Nibs Etc's model of turning food-processing by-products into new food is already being applied to other side streams, including:

• Toast Brewing (UK), brews beer with surplus loaves from bakeries and bread ends from sandwich makers, replacing about 25% of its malted barley. It has saved more than 4.1 million slices of bread, and because it gives all its profits to charity, it has donated £127,468 to date. In 2023, using surplus bread avoided 5.3 tonnes of CO₂e.

  
  

• BiaSol (Ireland), has rescued 450 tonnes of spent barley from Irish breweries, turning it into granola, oat bites and baking ingredients.

  
  

• Kern Tec (Austria), turns discarded apricot, plum, cherry and peach pits into ingredients used in plant-based dairy alternatives, confectionery, spreads and specialty oils. EIT reports that life cycle assessments show its kernel ingredients use up to 95% less water and produce about 50% lower CO₂ emissions than conventional nut ingredients (EIT, n.d.).

  
  

• Arla Foods Ingredients (Denmark) has developed three concepts that upcycle acid whey: a drinking yoghurt, a creamy dessert and a protein beverage. Acid whey is the main side stream of Greek yoghurt production, in which two-thirds of the milk ends up as waste. It makes up 50–73% of each product, combined with Arla's own whey protein ingredients, and the recipes can be processed on a standard dairy line (Arla Foods Ingredients, 2024).