Upcycled Pet Food Ingredients: How to Tell the Brewer’s Yeast Story

Brewer’s yeast is one of the few pet food ingredients that is upcycled by definition. It grows during beer fermentation, is recovered from the brewery and is dried into a feed ingredient. For a pet food brand, that is a sustainability story with a real supply chain behind it. Pet owners respond to that story when it is specific and documented, and this guide shows how to tell it.

What makes brewer’s yeast an upcycled ingredient?

The Upcycled Food Association defines upcycled ingredients as those that “otherwise would not have gone to human consumption”, procured and produced through verifiable supply chains, with a positive impact on the environment (as quoted by Petfood Industry, 2021). Brewer’s yeast fits each part:

• It is a co-product of beer brewing. Once fermentation ends, the brewery recovers more yeast than it needs.
• The supply chain is short and traceable: brewery, drying facility, pet food plant.
• Drying turns a perishable slurry into a stable ingredient with a 12-month shelf life, so it reaches a recipe instead of a waste stream.

TBESBY dried brewer’s yeast is made from fresh brewer’s yeast supplied by leading international breweries in Vietnam and dried at our own facilities in Vietnam. Our guide to what spent brewer’s yeast is covers the raw material in more detail.

What do pet owners think about upcycled and sustainable pet food?

Two points stand out. Interest is broad, and so is doubt. In the Kansas State work, minimising waste was the first thing 26 to 30% of owners associated with environmental sustainability, which is the job an upcycled ingredient does. Brands that can prove the claim get the benefit of that interest.

The word itself helps. When Drexel University researchers tested nine labels for products made from surplus ingredients, “upcycled” was the clear favourite, ahead of “reprocessed”, “rescued” and “recycled” (Bhatt et al., Journal of Consumer Behaviour). Participants rated these products as better for the environment than conventional foods and saw them as a category of their own.

How do you turn it into a claim pet owners believe?

People trust what is concrete, what they can picture and what someone credible has checked. Applied to brewer’s yeast, that means:

• Be specific. Name the ingredient and where it comes from. Specific claims are easier to believe and easier to defend.
• Use the familiar word. “Upcycled” tested best with consumers, so use it, and explain it once in plain words.
• Lead with the pet, then the planet. Owners buy for their animal first. Pair the sustainability line with a benefit they care about, such as protein or taste, and let sustainability be the reason to choose you over a similar recipe.
• Show proof. A certification mark, a supplier statement or a short supply chain story answers the 41.7% who doubt green claims.
• Borrow trusted voices. Vets, pet nutritionists and creators the owner already follows carry more weight than the brand saying it alone.

What documentation backs an upcycled claim?

The Upcycled Certified standard asks ingredient suppliers for four kinds of evidence (Petfood Industry, 2021):

1. Proof that the inputs were previously headed for a waste destination.
2. Supply chain records, such as bills of lading and proof of segregation.
3. The share of upcycled ingredients by weight and the tonnage diverted each year.
4. Compliance with the regulations that apply to the product and its market, such as AAFCO standards.

If you plan to apply for certification or to put an upcycled claim on pack, ask our team for the supplier documents your certifier or regulatory team needs. Every TBESBY shipment comes with a Certificate of Analysis, and our own facilities in Vietnam are U.S. FDA registered and certified to ISO 22000:2018. Details are on our quality and certificates page.

How can creators and vets help tell the story?

Sustainability claims land better when a voice the owner already trusts says them. For most pet brands, a group of small, well-matched creators works better than one large account: think vet nurses, pet nutrition writers and everyday owners whose followers look like your customers.

Give them a short brief instead of a script:

• The why: one sentence on why the recipe uses brewer’s yeast.
• Two or three talking points: the upcycled origin, the protein, and how pets take to it.
• The call to action: a unique code or link so you can measure what each creator brings in.
• The rules: a clear “#ad” or “sponsored” label where viewers will see it, said out loud in videos, and no health claims you cannot support. This follows the FTC’s guidance for influencers.

Our guide to brewer’s yeast claims in pet food marketing lists the claims that are safe to hand to creators.

Build your upcycled story on a documented ingredient

TBESBY supplies dried brewer’s yeast to pet food manufacturers and importers. Request a sample and specification to test it in your recipe, and read how it affects palatability in dry pet food.

Sources

• Petfood Industry (2021). Upcycled pet food ingredient certification requirements
• Petfood Industry (2023). What’s in a name: Can ‘upcycling’ attract pet food buyers? (Upcycled Food Association and Yummypets data)
• Petfood Industry (2025). What value do pet owners place on sustainable pet food? (Kansas State University survey)
• Drexel University (2017). Consumer acceptance of value-added surplus products, Journal of Consumer Behaviour
• AAFCO. Marketing and romance claims
• FTC. Disclosures 101 for social media influencers