Agricultural by-products are a problem for the farming industry. As waste, they represent financial loss and missed opportunities for farmers, and their disposal embodies the sector’s poor environmental track record. Upcycling discarded agricultural products is good for both business and the climate.

Functional beverages — drinks where health benefits are the primary selling point — may be an optimal way to reuse this waste. Farmers around the globe are already turning by-products into functional drinks in several ways.

1. Extracting Nutrients From Discarded Fruit and Vegetables

Fruits and vegetables pose particular promise in this area. These foods are often rich in nutrients, but half of all fruits and vegetables go to waste. Consumers frequently buy more of these perishable products than they need or discard less appetizing parts, but these trimmings still hold value.

The peels of many fruits can produce juices or extracts for teas when pressed or combined with sugars. Discarded vegetable trimmings are also high in antioxidants, making them an ideal additive to functional beverages. Many of these health advantages are reasons why consumers pursue fruits and vegetables initially, but they miss the full potential by not eating the entire plant. Turning the waste into drink additives resolves that issue.

2. Turning Cereal By-Products Into Fermented Drinks

Cereals are another optimal candidate for upcycling into functional beverages. More than 56% of human energy and 50% of consumed protein come from eating cereal grains, but processing these products often produces significant waste. Instead of disposing of spent grain and milling waste, some farmers have begun using it for fermented drinks like kombucha.

The fermentation behind these beverages already involves introducing microorganisms to cereals to break down their starches and sugars. Substituting newly harvested grains for spent alternatives enables the same process with no discernible impact on taste. The end product is often high in health benefits, usually featuring large amounts of fiber or antioxidants.

3. Using Whey From Dairy Waste for Protein

High-protein drinks are another popular functional beverage segment that can benefit from agricultural by-products. Protein fosters muscle growth and aids digestion, among other advantages, and one of its greatest sources, whey, is a massive waste category.

Whey is the primary by-product of cheese production, so dairy facilities generate a lot of it. However, it can be mixed into beverages in liquid form to increase their protein content without relying on other sources that may lack all the essential amino acids. Farms can turn the solid form into powder for consumers to mix into protein shakes.

4. Boosting Health Benefits With Fish Waste

Plants are not the only area of agricultural waste that can contribute to the functional drink market. Animal by-products are also useful. Fish holds special potential, as between 50% and 60% of these organisms go to waste annually, resulting in 134 million tons of unused seafood products each year.

Commonly discarded parts of the fish include the fins, head, bones and scales. While these may be unappealing as foods, they are rich in nutrients such as protein, collagens and fatty acids. Processing these components to produce powders or liquid additives gives drink manufacturers an easy way to increase many beverage health benefits, including higher skin hydration, antimicrobial activity and antioxidant properties.

5. Upcycling Bones Into Broth

Other farm animals’ by-products can play a role in functional drinks as well. Most notably, bones are the main ingredient in both broth, as its name implies. While broth may be most popular as a food base rather than a beverage, it has many health benefits when served as or used in drinks, too.

Consumers can either drink bone broth on its own or consume it as part of a protein shake or other functional beverage. The product contains roughly 8-10 grams of protein per cup, making it an ideal option for growing muscle or promoting satiety when dieting. It also contains minerals like calcium and magnesium that support people’s own bone health.

Benefits of Waste-Derived Functional Beverages

Across all categories, turning agricultural by-products into healthy drinks has many enticing advantages. The most immediately evident are monetary. Functional water alone is on track to be worth $9.41 billion by 2032, so joining this growing industry offers significant financial opportunities in return for the waste products farms already produce.

These benefits extend to consumers. Deriving key beverage ingredients from agricultural waste can lead to lower costs, as sourcing nutritious additives will become less expensive. As a result, these products become more accessible to a wider range of health-conscious consumers.

As with all waste upcycling endeavors, this practice also benefits the environment. Unused and discarded products account for up to 40% of the food supply in the U.S. alone. That represents considerable consumption of land, water and other natural resources ultimately producing no value. Those impacts are even more severe in light of process and supply chain-related carbon emissions.

Finding low-carbon and resource-efficient alternatives to conventional farming practices is part of the puzzle. However, ensuring a larger portion of this work actually produces tangible value is also crucial, especially when it comes to food security and public health. Designating otherwise discarded by-products as an ingredient for new beverages is an excellent opportunity to do so.

Remaining Obstacles

While turning by-products into functional beverages is highly advantageous, there are some lingering concerns. Most notably, many of these use cases require additional processing to make waste ready for use as a drink additive. Consequently, they introduce costs and emissions of their own.

These expenses and emissions may not outweigh the long-term financial and environmental benefits, but they may lower them. Any improvement is better than stagnation, but considering how agriculture is responsible for 11% of all emissions and is often a low-margin industry, some may feel it is more worthwhile to invest in other, more disruptive innovations.

Regulatory uncertainty may also pose a challenge. Currently, functional foods and beverages do not have a regulatory category, leading to a lack of clarity about where their health claims fall under the law and what scrutiny they must face from regulators. Some farmers and drink manufacturers may not want to pursue something where the legal implications are so unclear.

Laws and regulations will likely clear up as this market grows. However, that also means that a permissible process today may not be in the future. That potential for disruption may hinder some farms from pursuing this sector to avoid fines or disruptive manufacturing changes until the legal landscape settles.

Functional Beverages Provide a Unique Upcycling Opportunity

Despite the remaining obstacles, functional beverages are a promising business and environmental opportunity for farmers. Directing food waste to these products can reduce ecological impacts, provide new revenue streams and make healthy options more accessible.

Attention to regulatory, financial and environmental roadblocks is still necessary. However, if farms keep these in mind while pursuing a stake in the functional drink market, they could see significant future success.