From waste to nutrition: valorization strategies for surplus and ugly produce within the Food Use and Waste Hierarchy

Fruit and vegetables (F&Vs) account for approximately 50% of global food loss and waste (FLW). This represents an environmental and economic burden, as well as a significant, yet often overlooked concern for human nutrition. At the farm level, surplus (products for which there is no buyer) and "ugly produce" (products rejected for failing aesthetic standards) are often discarded or diverted for low value uses, such as composting or animal feed, despite retaining a good nutritional and functional quality. Current valorization frameworks, including the EU Food Use and Waste Hierarchy (FUWH), prioritize environmental and economic criteria, yet largely overlook an explicit nutrition-sensitive dimension. This review addresses this gap by proposing a nutrition-sensitive reinterpretation of the EU FUWH that is specifically applied to surplus and ugly F&Vs at the primary production level. The key advance over previous adaptations of the hierarchy is the incorporation of a tier aimed at "food-grade processing and nutritional valorization" above animal feed use. This new tier is based on the principle that retaining nutrients and bioactive compounds for human consumption is a higher-order outcome. The situation reveals a nutrition-sensitive paradox in which strategies with the highest nutritional preservation potential face the greatest implementation barriers, calling for policy, economic and logistical interventions that realign incentive structures with nutrition-sensitive outcomes.