Tyson Foods Launches New Upcycled Protein Product To Fight Food Waste

As sustainability trends continue to dominate the food industry, food manufacturers are put in a position where they must promote their environmental values in order to draw in more consumers. Tyson Foods has done exactly that with the development of their new Yappah! product, which is set to be launched as a test pilot in one Chicago-based supermarket this month.

Yappah! is a savory protein-crisp product that contains 8-10 grams of protein per serving. It features bite-sized protein crisps made with upcycled chicken trim and upcycled carrot and celery puree that is sourced from juicing or spent malted barley from beer brewing. In addition, these products are packaged in recyclable aluminum cans and come in four varieties: chicken celery mojo, chicken carrot curry, chicken IPA, white cheddar and chicken sunshine shandy beer.

Tyson’s Innovation Lab is known to promote the development of new products as fast they can, however, they are very careful with their total investment in new product launches.

“The idea is to not spend two years of investment and watch it fail or struggle or succeed,” Kang Kuan, executive chef at Tyson Innovation Lab, told Food Business News. “Six months. If it works, run. If it doesn’t, that’s okay. Fail fast, fail small.”

However, Yappah! looks promising for the company as it incorporates sustainability in every aspect of its production. Tyson plans on launching this product in Chicago-based grocery store Treasure Island Foods for 90 days to test out its success in the heath-focused and eco-friendly market. The company will then decide on whether or not to expand this product to other retailers. However, the company seems quite confident in the flavor profiles of these new protein crisps.

“The idea here was to let the vegetables speak for themselves,” Kuan said. “Carrot goes well with ginger, carrot goes well with herbs, carrot goes well with butter, carrot goes well with curry. Why don’t we use carrot to be the hero?

“Celery, it’s the same way. Most of the time celery is a thing that’s sitting in the back of your produce drawer that dries out and you throw it away. How do you bring celery to the hero spot, not just in a Bloody Mary?”

Yappah! is currently being manufactured in one pilot plant. If the product becomes successful, Tyson will likely expand to a co-packer. With the global market value for sustainable foods expected to reach $872.7 billion by 2020, its no surprise that Tyson is trying to find the perfect sustainable food product.

“We want to be that company that other companies say, ‘We want to partner; we want to do things like that and try to find a solution around food waste,’” said Menny Zotos, Partnership and Assessment Captain at Tyson Innovation Lab. “There are a lot of start-ups that are trying do that, but honestly start-ups can only do so much. If a bigger corporation wants to be behind a movement like eliminating food waste, then we can make a big difference.”