Food waste as resource: new bio-materials on designing alternative food cycles experiences

The essay focuses on the dynamics that are shaping the food system. Precise- ly, it enlightens a growing attention and awareness of society in the food waste problem and an emerging desire to provide innovative solutions aimed at trans- forming vulnerable points of the agro-food chain into economic and environ- mental potentials. In recent years, the awareness of industries and consumers, more and more attentive to the social and environmental values of products, to the origin of raw materials and production processes, has encouraged an impe- tus towards design solutions for the enhancement of waste. This is due, above all, to technological innovations in research and experimentation increasingly oriented towards environmental sustainability. In light of the number and quality of emerging projects, this decade could mark a crucial stage in the development of recycling processes of food waste. An increasingly rising figure, in fact, is that of companies and start-ups that transform their own waste into both a new re- source and a market opportunity, adopting the principles of Circular Economy: a strategy put in place by several governments to guide the production system in pursuing environmental improvement actions towards real sustainability goals. Therefore, combining ethics and social responsibility with the legitimate desire of investors to make profits could become reality, as the utopian materials deri- ved from food waste have become real.