A nutrition adage suggests that “you are what you eat.” But what if you flip that phrase to focus first on a new food or beverage—to then learn something about the person or people behind it?

That’s the story of The Spare Food Co. and its Spare Burger—a pre-made foodservice burger patty that replaces 30% of the beef with upcycled vegetables. By the numbers, this simple frozen, 4oz patty delivers 16g of protein with reduced cholesterol, less saturated fat and fewer calories than standard all-beef options. It also features Upcycled Certified™️ surplus vegetables and contributes to a customer’s lower environmental footprint (up to 2.8kg CO2e emissions lower for each pound of 100% grass-fed beef switched).

Behind the scenes, this product perfectly reflects the personalities and passions of company co-founders and brothers Jeremy and Adam Kaye.

Adam, Spare Food’s chief culinary officer, is a 29-year restaurant veteran with a storied career as chef at Blue Hill Restaurant. For more than two decades he also served as chef and culinary director of Blue Hill at Stone Barns, Tarrytown, N.Y. Jeremy Kaye, Spare Foods’ CEO, brings 36 years of experience in brand management, growth strategy and mission-driven leadership including roles at Patagonia and Tomorrow Partners.

“The first notion of the opportunity for Spare came from Adam’s experience as co-founder of the wastED pop-up restaurant concepts in NYC and London,” says Jeremy. “This was in 2015 in New York City, and 2017 in London. It coincided with early research published by the National Resources Defense Council and World Wildlife Fund about the crisis of food waste—and was brought into stark relief by Project Drawdown. Adam speaks in food metaphors at times, and he'd tell you that if you put a healthy dose of Blue Hill and Patagonia in a blender, the result is The Spare Food Co.”

Kaye continues, “Spare means both ‘extra and available for use,’ and ‘to leave unharmed.’ For us, it is a reframing of waste as an opportunity. Who decided some foodstuffs are waste? Everything we purchase is perfectly edible, food safe and nutritious—and everything we source comes from the source and much of it has not even had a chance to become ‘waste.’”

Kaye says the brothers founded their company in 2018 and initially focused on new applications that incorporated upcycled whey from Northeast yogurt processors. Adam had long used whey as an ingredient to bolster the nutrition of restaurant menu offerings.

In 2019, the brothers also received a grant from the Kroger Zero Hunger Zero Waste Foundation and they studied the percentage of commodity vegetables that are grown—but that ultimately never leave the farm gate. Jeremy says the “staggering” result was that an estimated 48% to 56% of as many as six primary vegetables ultimately do not leave the farm for a multitude of reasons. They can include such varieties as cauliflower, zucchini, tomato, onion and eggplant.

Kaye says the brothers next surveyed large foodservice operators to better understand issues and opportunities with wasted food in their operations. Once the nation’s COVID pandemic hit, the Kayes pivoted away from on-site, in-kitchen work and started their first product: Spare Tonic, which incorporated whey, fruit, honey and spices. It debuted in 2021.

Next, in 2023, came the Spare Starter Vegetable Blend, which leveraged foodservice operator insights and purposefully featured as many as six unused and/or upcycled vegetable components. Spare Starter comes in a two-gallon tub and operators can incorporate the blend into recipes and dishes for more nutritious, plant-forward applications. When it came time to make it a commercial product, Jeremy says it took more than two years to find the right partners, develop supply chain relationships and scale up manufacturing.

“We collaborated with chefs and culinary leadership at Harvest Table, a higher-ed division of Aramark,” says Jeremy. “Working with their teams on-site, we quickly noticed that approximately 60% of the use cases for Spare Starter in their kitchens was to replace a portion of animal proteins in their recipes and dishes. We realized that we could significantly improve both labor efficiencies and ensure more consistency of dishes and flavor if we could pre-blend the meat with Spare Starter for the operators. This was the catalyst that led to the creation and launch of Spare Burger.”

Adam’s experience in butchery and charcuterie once again helped as the brothers investigated the opportunity for Spare Burger. Effectively, it meant creating a burger blend with the texture and rich flavor of a traditional beef patty—along with a meaningful amount of surplus vegetables (with no fillers, additives or binders). Jeremy says Spare Food explored this with a number of different meat processing partners and they developed ways to scale up a formula and production.

A Deep Dive into the Future of Food & Beverage

From 2023 through late 2024, Jeremy says Spare Food collaborated closely with launch partners—University of Massachusetts Amherst and Guckenheimer (a corporate dining services company)—for on-site, hands-on testing in dining centers and cafes.

“There was an immediate feedback loop that allowed us to adjust the patty for grill performance, hold time, and flexibility across cooking formats,” notes Jeremy. “It also demonstrated the versatility of a bulk Spare Beef blend version as a simple one-for-one replacement in any recipe that calls for ground beef. This drastically increases the impact operators can make by switching to Spare across menu occasions and dayparts. Ultimately, these collaborative efforts helped us overcome the core challenges of blending innovation with practical application at scale. The result is a culinary offering that is planet-friendly, diner endorsed and operationally seamless.”

Spare Food launched Spare Burger in October 2024 to colleges and universities, businesses and institutions and this year found it rolling out to healthcare and senior living operators. Among product converts are Vanderbilt University and Princeton University and both have converted 100% of their beef purchases to Spare Burger and Spare Beef, notes Jeremy.

“Spare Burger directly addresses today’s urgent consumer and operator needs for healthier, more sustainable, and more innovative food options—without asking diners to compromise on flavor or experience,” says Kaye. “Spare Burger and Spare Beef truly offer the better beef solution so many seek.”