Tyson Innovation Lab launches snack made with food waste

Tyson Innovation Lab, the Tyson Foods Inc. team tasked with bringing new consumer products to market in just six months in Chicago, has recently launched ¡Yappah!, its first brand. The brand debuted May 31 with a campaign on the crowd-funding platform Indiegogo. The brand name was inspired by a tradition in the South American Andes called “yapa,” which refers to the little something extra a merchant gives to a valued customer so that nothing gets wasted.

“The ¡Yappah! brand mission is unique, important and far-reaching,” Rizal Hamdallah, head of Tyson Innovation Lab, says. “The brand was created to inspire people and partners to rethink their relationship to food and how it impacts society. Through this launch, we intend to address global food challenges such as food waste.”

The first product under the ¡Yappah! brand, Protein Crisps, is made from rescued and upcycled vegetable and grain-based ingredients that might otherwise be left behind.

Tyson Foods provides upcycled chicken breast trim and combines it with either rescued vegetable puree from juicing or rescued spent grain from Moslon Coor’s () beer brewing in Denver to create the line’s four flavors.

The ¡Yappah! brand is designed to be an umbrella under which future products and product categories will be launched that help address major social and sustainability challenges related to food.

“With the Protein Crisps we are taking ‘forgotten’ ingredients and crafting them into a delicious protein snack,” Hamdallah says. “For the ¡Yappah! brand, sustainability is not an add-on, it’s our DNA. Fighting food waste is just the beginning.

In January 2018 Tyson Innovation Lab was challenged to rethink the culinary possibilities for ingredients that are typically left unused during food production, often becoming food waste.

“We wanted to be ingredient-driven in order to create a flavorful snack that people would absolutely love,” Chef Kang Kuan, executive chef at Tyson Innovation Lab, says.

Kang built his culinary career at such restaurants as the French Laundry in Yountville, California, and Morimoto, New York City.

“I was thrilled by the opportunity to source ‘forgotten’ ingredients and compose them into something more flavor nuanced and protein-filled than typical snack foods,” Kang says. “People might not realize that vegetable pulp left behind during juicing is arguably better and richer tasting than the juice itself, and spent grain is surprisingly delicious. So, we had these amazing flavors to work with. The result is a crispy snack that comes in four culinary-driven flavors that will appeal to all food lovers.”

The four flavors are:

• from rescued veggie puree
• chicken carrot-curry
• chicken celery-mojo

The flavors using rescued spent grain are:

• chicken IPA (India pale ale) white cheddar
• Chicken-shandy beer

Tyson Innovation Lab launched ¡Yappah! Protein Crisps on the Indiegogo crowd-funding platform in May, which will be followed by a 90-day pilot at one Chicago-based supermarket in July.

“We think a chef-composed snack is a groundbreaking idea but are cognizant that products fighting food waste are in their nascent stages,” Santiago Proaño, brand lead at Tyson Innovation Lab, says. “Indiegogo is a great channel for testing since consumers on the platform are known for being early adopters of new to the world ideas and products. We want to connect directly with this enthusiastic community that cares about creating better food. Their reaction to the product, and their engagement with us, will help us get ready for what we hope will be a much broader rollout.”