Meet the brands turning rubbish into business ideas

A host of new brands are emerging, using surplus food and discarded plastic to offer consumers a sustainable alternative to everyday items like ketchup, beer and backpacks.

The figures around food and plastic waste make for difficult reading. About 1.3 billion tonnes of food is discarded each year, which is a third of all food produced, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations.
Meanwhile, 8 million tonnes of plastic waste is dumped in our oceans and, in the UK alone, 2.2 million tonnes of plastic is thrown away, according to government figures.
While these numbers make for scary reading, it has paved the way for several new brands. From brewing beer out of discarded bread to making rucksacks from old plastic bottles, a number of challenger brands are devising innovative ways to tackle the problem head-on and shake up their sectors.
Rubies in the Rubble was founded in 2010 to find a home for fruit and vegetables that aren’t considered cosmetically perfect by turning them into condiments such as chutney, ketchup and mayo.
“The more I researched food waste, the more I couldn’t believe people weren’t talking about it,” Rubies founder Jenny Costa explains.
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