A new trend has become increasingly popular in recent years, mainly as a response to the major sustainability issue of food waste: upcycled food. Aimed at creating high-quality products from what is generally discarded, this trend extends far beyond the material level, involving interesting meaning-making processes. In fact, as highlighted by Aschemann-Witzel et al. (2022), two types of upcycled foods can be identified: one consists in the alternative use of ingredients otherwise wasted, which are “rescued from the threat of disposal” (Ibid.: 134); the other is based on the idea of a novel use of substances that are generally considered inedible or remain under-used (for instance, because they do not comply with the aesthetic standards of large-scale retail trade). While in the first case the "added value" projected onto upcycled food relies on its “antiwaste” potential, in the latter it reaches up to the level of edibility—or, better, to our “perceptions of edibility” (Danesi 2004; cf. Stano 2015, 2023). Not only this reminds us how food establishes itself as “a system of communication, a body of images, a protocol of usages, situations, and behavior” (Barthes 1961, ET 1997: 21), but it also highlights the potential of (anti)waste as a key category for understanding cultural value. The analysis of specific case studies will allow us to further explore such dynamics, reflecting on the processes of (re)semantisation fostered by the upcycling movement, and their main effects of meaning.