Turning Food Waste into Value: How SugaRich Is Redefining Sustainability in the Food Chain

Across the UK and Europe, food waste remains one of the most pressing environmental and economic challenges. Nearly one-third of all food produced globally is lost or wasted, representing over £1 trillion in economic waste and around 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. For more than 50 years, SugaRich has been quietly engineering a different path—proving that waste doesn’t need to exist in a circular food system.

Today, the business is scaling at pace, expanding across borders, investing in technology and capability to help food manufacturers stop waste before it occurs, recover food as food where possible, and upcycle unavoidable surplus into nutritious animal feed. It is a model rooted in practicality, technology, and measurable environmental impact.

“We exist to stop food waste—full stop,” says Alex Keogh, Managing Director of SugaRich. “Where waste can’t be prevented, we keep food as food. Where that isn’t possible, we upcycle it into sustainable animal feed. Every tonne we manage stays in the food chain and out of landfill, anaerobic digestion or incineration.”

SugaRich manages more than 500,000 tonnes of surplus food every year from some of the UK and Europe’s largest manufacturers and retailers. The business has refined a model that combines high-quality processing infrastructure with proprietary technology—SugaTrak, its waste-tracking digital platform—to generate full chain-of-custody data, performance analytics, and sustainability reporting.

The result: manufacturers get transparency, traceability, and efficiency alongside environmental benefit.

“Our customers don’t just want waste gone—they want insight,” Keogh notes. “SugaTrak provides real-time visibility and data that helps them reduce waste in the first place. We don’t just collect surplus — we protect value. Across the food factory our tech shows manufacturers exactly where waste is happening and how to prevent it”

SugaTrak doesn’t just stop waste — it makes factories run better. When food stays in production instead of becoming by-product, it cuts labour, energy, water, downtime and wear-and-tear. It unlocks line capacity; boosts yield and drives more saleable product per hour worked. The result? Lower costs, lower emissions, and a meaningfully reduced carbon intensity per unit produced — directly supporting Scope 1 and 2 goals. Preventing waste isn’t “nice to have” — it’s operational excellence with a climate dividend.

As sustainability expectations rise from consumers, regulators, and investors, manufacturers need a solution with a demonstrable impact. SugaRich offers both immediate and long-term value:

Every tonne of surplus food diverted to animal feed delivers a carbon saving up to six times greater than anaerobic digestion or composting. It avoids agricultural land use, protects natural ecosystems, and reduces feed industry reliance on carbon-intensive imported commodities.

“Animal feed isn't a fallback—it’s a high-value circular outcome,” Keogh explains. “We help protect land, avoid emissions, and keep nutrition circulating in our food system. It's the original circular economy.”

The business, headquartered in the UK, is now accelerating internationally with strategic acquisitions and partnerships across Spain, France and beyond. This expansion reflects a growing recognition that circularity isn't a sustainability slogan—it's an operational advantage.

The model is simple but transformative: localise food waste solutions, integrate technology, reduce environmental burden, and return value back into the supply chain.

“We are building a European network capable of handling waste at scale, consistently and transparently,” says Keogh. “The more we grow, the more carbon we save and the more food we keep in our food system.”

Beyond its technology and infrastructure, SugaRich is promoting a mindset shift in the industry: waste isn’t inevitable. It is preventable, measurable, and valuable when properly managed.

“We always say: waste is data,” Keogh adds. “It tells you how your factory runs, where product escapes and where value leaks. We help capture that value—and we help stop the leaks.”

SugaRich’s mission is clear, ambitious, and grounded in decades of operational experience and excellence.

“Our goal is a world where food is never wasted,” Keogh concludes. “We are proving that sustainability and commercial performance go hand-in-hand. The circular food economy isn’t coming—it’s already here, and we’re building on it.”

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