The Upcycled Food Association announced that they define upcycled foods as ones that use ingredients that otherwise would not have gone to human consumption, are procured and produced using verifiable supply chains, and have a positive impact on the environment. Food upcycling is a unique solution to the food waste problem, and where the collaboration between The Green Urban Lunch Box and Mountain West Hard Cider really shines.
Every year GULB and Mountain West work together to create the delicious and hyper local Green Urban Lunch Box Hard Cider using B-grade apples that have been harvested through GULB’s FruitShare program. The FruitShare program partners with fruit tree homeowners and community volunteers to harvest fruit that would otherwise go to waste. The fruit that is harvested at each harvest event is sorted into categories, A and B (sometimes C, which is destined for the compost). A-grade is fruit that looks perfect, with no bruises, blemishes or funny shapes, and is easily distributed between the Food Bank, other hunger relief programs and GULB’s various CSA options. B-grade is fruit that is still perfectly edible, but may be misshapen or have a few blemishes that make it harder to distribute.
A-grade fruit is very easy to distribute between the Food Bank, other hunger relief programs and GULB’s various CSA options, but this leaves us with large quantities of B-grade fruit that we can’t donate. To put that into perspective, GULB harvested over 24,000 lbs of apples, half of those being B-grade. This year the FruitShare staff and volunteers hauled over 5,000 lbs of apples to Mountain West Hard Cider. Volunteers and staff sorted, washed, grinded and pressed the apples to create 300 gallons of apple cider for Mountain West to bottle, ferment and sell.
For each bottle that is sold, 5 dollars goes back to GULB’s FruitShare program to purchase new harvesting and safety gear, as well as fuel for the harvest vans. This system enables GULB to coordinate even more projects and partnerships, just like the one with Mountain West Hard Cider.