To find out more about how this idea came to fruition, the company's results so far and also about future plans, we talked to Alexandru Cristinoi, founder of favr..

The beginning of favr., an innovative concept in Romania

favr., which stands for fruits and veggies reborn, is a Romanian company specialized in producing snacks from secondary raw materials, such as beer malt of fruit pulp from natural juices, which was able to reduce the overall environmental footprint of food products by 40% of their original value, by turning them into ingredients.

"favr. (fruits and veggies reborn) is a concept that has been developed in Romania which led to the development of multiple snack products that use as their main ingredient secondary products from the beer and juice industries. It all started with a curiosity: making snacks with a clean recipe, using these otherwise ignored resources (beer malt and fruit pulp from juices)", Alexandru explains.

After the first couple of tries, he added, this project turned into an ambition: to manufacture a product that's viable from a financial stand point, but which can maintain its initial values, so to still be nutritious and sustainable.

Food waste is one of the human activities that can have a great negative impact on the environment. Food decomposition is one of the main sources of methane, a greenhouse gas which contributes to climate change 80 times more than CO2 over a time frame of 20 years.

After almost two years of research and development of the concept and the recipes, favr. was officially born in 2019.

"It was a provocative process and we started from scratch, since there were no businesses or recipes to take inspiration from", Alex told Green Start-Up.

favr.'s challenges after 6 years of fighting food waste

The results of favr.'s products must be looked at from two angles. Firstly, the total analysis of the emissions in the whole lifecycle of the product shows that over 50% of the carbon footprint is derived from the production, with an emphasis on energy consumption through processes such as drying or purchasing raw materials.

The second stage showcases the avoided emissions, with a significant impact. Since favr. obtains the required raw materials for production from local sources, the company doesn't contribute to the overall greenhouse gases. This practice generates important amounts of emissions savings and saves food products from degradation, while also cutting the negative impact on the planet.

However, favr.'s challenges aren't about the production or supplying with the required raw materials (for the most part), but rather about a more volatile aspect, which is customers.

"Our products can be found in butcher shops and locations that prefer special products, but it's not enough", the company's founder explains. "About 80% of the customers only shop in supermarkets where small companies aren't always present. The supply with raw materials isn't an issue for permanent products, but there are a few snacks that we can't produce, due to the fact that we don't have the necessary by-products, as there aren't any more manufacturers that use these products."

So, favr.'s activity is entirely dependent on the initial production of food in the industry and the resulted secondary products, which is why the company's snacks have a limited variability. "We won't use pineapple or blackberries unless they have been squeezed first for their juice."

There are 10 permanent product types in favr.'s product offering list, which can be split into three categories: Malt Crackers, Juice Pulp Crackers and Granola. And also, for the fans of limited-edition products, favr. also collaborates during certain times of a year with Romanian companies that generate other type of secondary by-products, depending on the season.

Fighting food waste, a collective effort in the industry

Ever since the beginning of the activity, Alex confesses that Romanian producers in the food industry were very open to favr.'s proposition to take their by-products in order to use them into innovative and nutritious foods. For its efforts in this direction, the company was awarded the Global Carbon Point (GCP) validation. The emissions favr. is able to avoid vary from one product type to another, reaching an average of around 40% of the product's whole carbon footprint.

These are thanks to turning the raw materials, such as beer malt and fruit pulp, into ingredients, as well as from avoiding waste. As for the production of food at favr., this is done without wasting further resources.

So, Alex tells Green Start-Up that "we were able to make the production process so efficient that there are no organic leftovers. The recipes that we developed use the humidity from the malt and the fruit pulp so that we don't have to use a single drop of water. This was also very important when calculating the carbon footprint for the favr. concept, done together with ECONOS, a company specialized in ESG."

The customer response to sustainably-made food products

Until favr. emerged, Romanians didn't have access to many sustainable food products, manufactured from secondary raw materials, so the company's products were sort of a gamble for the market, one that paid off. Alex told us that the three characteristics of favr. snacks were also found within customer evaluation.

"It's the whole value package that we worked on ever since creating favr.: Nutritive, Sustainable and Affordable. The Upcycling component is what makes them curious. The taste and crunchy experience confirm this and everything is "sealed" with the nutritional value, where we have very high value for protein and fiber for a product in this category", favr.'s founder explains.

The same opinion was shared by the experts that offered favr. an award for their CHIMEN product, the award for the best Plant Based product at the Gustul Ales competition in 2024.

The company's success is even more impressive if we take into account the initial investment that it was built upon, which was 50.000 euros in bootstrapping, but after the success to date and the increase demand for these products, favr. now looks for new funding options.

favr.'s main objective for 2025: sales

With sales worth about 21.000 euros back in 2023, favr. expects similar sales for the 2024 financial year, as well, so we could say that the trend for the company is stable to ascending.

But beyond the fact that for the team at favr. one of the priorities is raising funding to grow and make the business more efficient, selling the products in larger supermarkets and the development of new products are at least as important.

"The focus for 2025 will be the sales. For favr. this also means a positive impact on the environment, because by reusing malt and fruit pulp, we prevent 0.5 kg CO2e for each kg of snacks produced. Besides this, by obtaining funding, we will also look for solutions to increase the energy consumption efficiency for the production process, through installing solar panels and batteries", Alexandru Cristinoi added.