It’s no secret that food waste is a massive problem. Every year, $218 billion is spent on food that is never eaten–amounting to 52 million tons sent to landfills annually. Another 10 million tons is discarded or left unharvested on farms. In response, a number of companies have emerged to tackle this issue. From repurposing food waste into added-value products to recovering nutrients from food that is thrown away, join us to hear from innovators in the space at our June Food+Tech Meetup. Presenters will do a deep dive into their business strategies, technologies, challenges and lessons learned.

Come network with the community and get a taste from emerging F&B startups: Ancolie, Rescuing Leftover Cuisine x Breads Bakery, ReGrained, Misfit Juicery, Gotham Greens, Local Roots NYC, Food for All and Toast Ale USA!

SCHEDULE:
6:30 – 7:15pm: Networking
7:30 – 9:00pm: Presentations + Q&A
9:00 – 9:30pm: Networking

PRESENTERS:
Joanna Ehrenreich, Heads of Operations & Marketing, Toast Ale USA
Jo has spent her career at NYC startups, most recently as an early stage hire at Blue Apron. She helped run Blue Apron’s sustainability efforts as well as brand marketing, where she met Toast’s founder who served as a mentor on several food waste initiatives. She joined the Toast US team in 2018 as General Manager.

Matthew Holtzman, Founder, goMkt
goMkt was established in 2016 with a simple mission: reduce food waste, support small business and charitable giving, and bring people together to share delicious food. Matthew was the former founder of Yahoo-backed startup to ID hate speech and analyst at AppNexus.

Phil Wong, Co-Founder, Misfit Juicery
Phil co-founded Misfit with his best friend Ann 3 years ago in his college kitchen. Phil has spent time in Rwanda and Senegal, both of which were integral to Misft’s beginnings. Phil’s a Halcyon Fellow and graduated in 2015 from Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service with a BSFS in Science, Technology, and International Affairs. Phil and Ann were named to the 2018 list of Forbes 30 Under 30 (Social Entrepreneurs).

Amanda Weeks, Co-Founder & CEO, Industrial/Organic
Amanda co-founded I/O to rapidly recover water, energy and nutrients from food waste to produce high-value products such as organic fertilizers, animal feed and clean energy. The company aims to operate a distributed network of micro-facilities utilizes existing industrial spaces, providing a faster and cheaper alternative to other organic waste solutions, while contributing to the revitalization of post-industrial areas. It recently closed a $1.3m seed round to build out its first commercial facility in New Jersey, set to open this summer to serve the New York metro area.

HOST:

Kickstarter is a funding platform for creative projects. We are an independent, founder-controlled company of 132 people working together in an old pencil factory in New York City. Over 10 million people, from every continent on earth, have backed a Kickstarter project from films, games, and music to art, design, and technology. To date, tens of thousands of creative projects — big and small — have come to life with the support of the Kickstarter community.

SPONSOR:

Like our namesake borough, the Brooklyn Brewery is made up of a rich collection of characters from all over the world. In our Williamsburg home, these characters are dedicated to brewing and selling great beer and enriching the communities we serve. Together, these Brooklyners have assembled the skills needed to transform a home brewing hobby into an independent brewery with a brand that has become an international beacon for good beer.

The post Food Waste Innovation appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

In tandem with the launch of the Food+Tech Job Board, we are thrilled to launch the Food Startup Growth Series. This series will give you an inside look at the strategies, challenges and best practices of fast-growing food startups.

In the United States, we spend $218 billion annually growing, processing, transporting, and disposing of food that is discarded. As awareness around the cost of food waste grows, the food industry is increasingly looking for creative solutions to reduce it. Boston-based Spoiler Alert is one of the startups working to help food businesses, farms and non-profits to minimize waste and recover value from surplus food. Through its platform, food businesses and farms can post, donate and sell surplus food and “ugly produce.” It also streamlines accounting systems, making it easier for companies to capture tax benefits and to track key metrics.  When food becomes available, potential recipients are notified and interested parties are able to connect and coordinate costs and logistics.

While working towards an MBA at MIT, co-founder and CEO Ricky Ashenfelter met Emily Malina,who would become his co-founder and chief product officer. In 2015, they launched Spoiler Alert and were awarded a $50,000 non-dilutive grant from MassChallenge. They are also recipients of a $100,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation as part of the Unreasonable Institute’s Future Cities Accelerator. In March 2016, they raised a $100,000 convertible note from TechStars. Then, in November 2016, Spoiler Alert raised a $2.5 million Seed round of funding, led by Acre Venture partners with participation from Valley Oak Investments, LaunchCapital, Fresh Source Capital and FTW Ventures. The startup also recently partnered with major food producer, Sysco Corporation.

I spoke with Ricky about Spoiler Alert’s growth goals, how he’s proving company culture while scaling-up (they’re hiring!), and the unique initiatives that his team has created to assess personal growth within the company. He also told me how he plans on expanding his company’s services to other key markets in North America.

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Danielle Gould: What are your growth goals for the next 12-24 months, and how do you plan to achieve those goals?

Ricky Ashenfelter: This is a great time to be in the “food waste innovation” industry, and we have a lot of work ahead of us to continue building a brand as a trusted resource in this field. We’re doubling down on our efforts to target leading wholesale distribution, food manufacturing and retail companies with our Enterprise offering, and we’re eager to take our Marketplace offering to other key geographies in North America. How are we going to do this? By continuing to work with great companies like Sysco Corporation, as well as by seeking input from leading nonprofits, food rescue organizations and government agencies that have a presence in those target communities.

DG: What does your team look like?

RA: Our team is loosely split across three functions: Product Development, Sales & Marketing, and Customer Success. Half technical, half non-technical – ranging from 20-something on the younger end to 50-something on the older end. We all work together in Boston’s Bay Back neighborhood in a great office decorated with lots of green, natural light, and our own company garden (the waste from which we try to keep to a minimum!).

DG: What does your company culture look like? How have you built your company culture?

RA: Culture is something we take incredibly seriously, and it’s built around 5 pillars that we’ve documented as a manifesto of sorts: Impact, Results, Transparency, Collaboration, and Personal Growth. These five are the results of principles (both realized and aspirational) that were important to the founders and enhanced with direct input from early team members. My personal favorite is Impact. Employees must – without question – be passionate about Spoiler Alert’s mission and/or how it materializes as a product. We have such a unique play within the food industry, and as an early stage company, it’s critical we see that embodied in each new wave of hires.

DG: How are you preserving your company culture as you scale up?

RA: We go to great lengths to make sure the new team members we bring on are screened for cultural fit through the interview process and embody it as they grow in our company. We’ve made it clear that every employee is responsible for the preservation and enhancement of our culture, not just the responsibility of leadership. One way we’ve done this is – quite literally – incorporating it into everyone’s performance reviews and feedback sessions. We only ask 3 questions when we evaluate performance: what are you doing well, where can you improve, and how have you enhanced the company’s brand and culture?

DG: What do you know now that you wish you would have known when you started scaling your company? What are the biggest challenges and lessons learned as you’ve grown your company?

RA: Our team has learned a lot about the values of personal growth, goal setting and feedback. Over the last couple of months, we’ve introduced four initiatives that “formalize” this: 1) setting and documenting actionable “OKRs” (Objectives & Key Results) with each team member; 2) offering informal performance reviews twice a year – focused on highlighting strengths, improvement areas, and culture contributions; 3) introducing monthly one-on-one sitdowns (or strolls through the Boston Public Garden) between each employee and a founder; and 4) soliciting anonymous, 360 degree feedback on leadership’s own performance and management style. This has resulted in what we believe to be a more motivated, higher performing team – from leadership on down.

DG: What’s keeping your team busy right now?

RA: At the end of the day we are a software company, which means a good portion of our employee base is engineers. What’s keeping them busy is enhancing our existing product and building out our future offerings. We’ve also grown headcount by 50 percent since the start of the year, making employee onboarding and ramp-up a really fun and critically important undertaking.

DG: What job(s) are you hiring for, and how will those positions help drive growth in your company?

CC: Marketing Manager. This person will play a significant role in developing content that is used to engage our target personas, designing sales collateral that supports business development efforts, and optimizing our website to drive top-of-funnel pipeline growth around the topics of sustainable food practices, supply chain management, and food waste awareness.

DG: What will someone who works for you be able to add to their resume?

RA: We’re looking for individuals eager to make a big splash with an early-stage company. We are an incredibly collaborative and transparent team, and anyone we bring on would be able (and expected) to get their hands dirty and play a role in directly tackling our biggest challenges. There is tremendous room for impact across all facets of our business – from launching a new product offering or closing a major partnership, to building our content’s readership and developing an authoritative industry voice.

DG: What kind of training do you offer for new employees who may be switching from other industries or who are just out of school?

RA: For each new employee, we have a structured, multi-day approach to onboarding which includes an overview of the company, our industry, and the different partners we work with. We’ve also launched a new immersive initiative whereby new hires spend time working directly with our nonprofit partners, either riding along during one of their food rescue operations or volunteering at their facilities. This is a great way to not only expose them to the work of food redistribution but also to give them a better sense of impact and targeted demographics.

DG: What’s your favorite interview question?

RA: My favorite question is “In a year or two’s time, whether you’re with our company or elsewhere, what do you want to feel you’ve accomplished in looking back upon this time? How does the Jane Doe of tomorrow look different than the Jane Doe of today?” I like this for two reasons: 1) it offers a glimpse at the individual’s level of ambition, and 2) it makes sure the individual is aligned with the company’s trajectory and strategy. This can be an easy mechanism for screening good candidates from great candidates, and ones that know what they’re getting into in joining a startup.

DG: Why do you think it’s exciting to be working in food right now?

RA: We think it’s a great time to be working in food. Data and technology are unlocking some incredible insights for an industry that historically has been slow to adopt change – particularly in the fields of operations, transparency, and supply chain. Growing consumer interests in where their food is coming from and how its producers’ are minimizing their environmental efforts are trends that are hopefully here to stay!

Check out exciting food tech, design, management, operations, development and food science positions at Food+Tech Jobs.

The post How Spoiler Alert is Growing Its Food Waste Marketplace appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Guest post Marc Zornes, founder of Winnow, as part of our Internet of Food Series. The views expressed are are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views of Food+Tech Connect.

Every calorie counts, and reducing food waste should be the first priority in ensuring a sustainable food supply chain. New technologies are transforming how we look at waste. At Winnow, we believe food is too valuable to be wasted and that technology can transform the way we prepare our food. By tackling food waste aggressively and strategically, we all stand to gain from a more efficient, robust food supply chain.

Every day, the world wastes roughly one third of all food that is grown at some point between farm and fork. This is equal to over $1 trillion in waste or over 1 percent of global output. When the world ponders how to feed the growing population over the next 30 years, reducing this waste is first place we should start.

Only in the past 10 years have we really begun to understand the scale of this issue. Now that we appreciate the level of waste that exists in our system, it’s time for us to move from talking about why waste is a problem to finding solutions to address it.

The good news is that reducing food waste is a win-win for everyone in the supply chain. At each point, there is an opportunity to either be more efficient or to find new outlets for food that would otherwise go uneaten.

• Producers find new outlets to sell products that their existing producers cannot or will not buy.
• Food distributers improve their forecasting and buying techniques or gain tax breaks by donating food to those in need.
• Restaurants produce the right food and put the right product in front of their customers.
• Consumers get smarter about what they buy and how much they make.

In all instances, we save money while decreasing the needs for more intensive farming as food demands continue to increase with growing populations.

Reducing Food Waste With Innovations From Other Industries

We are at the nascent stages of innovation when it comes to reducing food waste, particularly with technology. There are only a handful of companies trying to solve this problem and yet the size of the opportunity is enormous. This is bound to change.

Despite the scale of the issue, this is very much a solvable problem. Early innovations to reduce waste such as Winnow are proving that waste can be cut by over 50 percent. The solutions are taking parallels from other businesses solving similar issues and applying them to this problem. These solutions fall into three broad themes:

Big Data: What you measure gets managed. Today, there is only sparse data on what is wasted. Accurately recording what is waste and why and then using that data to drive insights on how you can change operational practices and people’s behaviour has tremendous power. Once you know where waste is occurring, improved forecasting and production planning allows you address the issue at its root cause.

New Markets: We clearly know in advance when something is likely to be wasted. Identifying companies or people who will buy that product and make use of it prior to its expiry is a brand new revenue stream. Today, there are companies doing this at the farm level (Food Cowboys) and at homes (Olio).

Extending expiry dates: A myriad of new solutions are looking at how we can extend the shelf life of produce and other foods to make sure they can last until they are eaten. This can be particularly helpful in supermarkets and homes where the leading cause of waste.

At Winnow, we focus on the first area of big data. We’ve found that kitchens simply don’t know how much is being wasted, and that many large kitchens waste 20 percent of the food they buy. This is not through incompetence, but because they lack the correct tools. By monitoring waste with our technology, we help chefs improve their kitchen practices and drive significant savings to the bottom line.

We are on a mission to solve the problem for restaurants on a global scale. We are already live in six countries and are savings our clients millions. However, we’re only scratching the service. To really solve this problem, we need to be saving our clients billions. When we reach that goal, we will have an exciting business at the same time.

There are so many opportunities to fight waste in the food supply chain and tremendous wealth and impact that can be generated by doing so. Our real question is: who’s going to join us in the fight?

Internet of Food is an editorial series exploring how we might use technology, new business models and design to guarantee healthy, safe and sufficient food for everyone. Join the conversation between March 23 and April 29. Share your ideas in the comments, on Twitter using #internetoffood, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn, and follow the conversation by subscribing to our newsletter.

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Marc been working in the food supply chain for over 10 years. He started in logistics working for C&S Wholesale Grocers where he helped run distribution facilities, lead the company’s Vendor Managed Inventory program, and serve as the chief of staff to the CEO. He later worked as a Manager at McKinsey & Company where he was a leader in the Sustainability and Consumer practices.

While at McKinsey, Marc co-authored the McKinsey Gobal Institute report, Resource Revolution: Meeting the World’s Energy, Materials, Food and Water Needs. Marc led the team that conducted the analysis for the report focusing in on global opportunities for resource productivity. One of the key findings of this report was that food waste was one of the largest, untapped opportunities for resource productivity globally.

Marc then left McKinsey to found Winnow. Winnow build technology to help chefs run their kitchens more efficiently. The company’s first product helps sites better understand and prevent food waste. Since launch two years ago Winnow has been deployed in over 200 kitchens and has saved its customers over £2m by reducing food waste.

The post Reducing Food Waste Is A Win-Win For Everyone In The Supply Chain appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

From retailers rejecting “ugly produce”, to restaurants discarding excess food to eaters throwing out spoiled goods, roughly $400B in food ends up in landfills every year globally. To address this huge issue, innovators are developing new technologies and products to reduce food waste from farm to fork.

Come hang with the food innovation community at Food Waste Innovation From Farm to Fork on Thursday April 28 in San Francisco (location TBA) and meet some of the leading food waste game-changers including Back to the Roots, Imperfect, Cerplus and TwoXSea.You’ll get an inside look at their business models, challenges and lessons learned. We will have also have snacks and drinks from local makers. Snag your spot now HERE!

We’re Looking For Volunteers

We’re looking for a few awesome volunteers to help with event production. Email nina[at]foodtechconnect[dot]com if you’re interested.

Schedule

• 6:30 – 7:15: Networking + Snacks
• 7:15 – 8:45: Presentations + Q&A
• 8:45 – 9:30: More Networking

Confirmed Presenters

Nikhil Arora, Co-founder of Back to the Roots – A rapidly emerging organic food company that is dedicated to the movement of making food personal again, Back to the Roots was founded on the idea of turning waste into food. Its first product the Back to the Roots Mushroom Farm turned used coffee grounds into mushrooms. What started as curiosity about urban farming has turned into a passion for “Undoing Food” and reconnecting families to it through fun, delicious and sustainable “Ready to Grow” and “Ready to Eat” products.

Ben Chesler, Co-founder of Imperfect – America’s leading brand for ugly produce. Every year, 20% of fruits and vegetables grown in the U.S. fall short of the strict cosmetic standards of grocery stores. Most often, it’s because they have a different size or shape. Imperfect brings this produce to market for a 30-50% discount, starting in California. It’s mission is to fight food waste, support farmers and make it easy to eat healthy on a budget.

Zoe Wong, Co-founder & CEO of Cerplus – A B2B marketplace that connects discounted surplus produce with food businesses.

Kenny Belov, Founder of TwoXSea – TwoXSea supplies restaurants with amazing, sustainable seafood. It’s developing a food waste program in Sonoma County to convert part of the food waste stream to Black Soldier Fly protein for farmed fish and chicken. The process reveals a lot of unknown details about our food system. It hopes to convert 100 tons of food waste per day into highly beneficial protein and fat for our local food system.

Presenting Partner

Rabobank Group is a global financial services leader providing wholesale and retail banking, leasing, and real estate services in more than 40 countries worldwide. Founded over a century ago, Rabobank today is one of the largest banks in the world, with nearly $1 trillion in assets, and ranks among the 10 safest banks globally. In the Americas, Rabobank is a premier bank to the food, agribusiness and beverage industry, providing sector expertise, strategic counsel and tailored financial solutions to clients across the entire food value chain. Rabobank. The financial link in the global food chain.® Follow them on Twitter at @RaboWholesale.

Supporting Partner

Asana is a fast-growing startup focused on helping teams get more done together by making software that helps them track their work. Based in San Francisco, the company is also renowned for its great workplace and dedication to mindful business. Join the company’s Live Well team at Asana HQ for the Food+Tech Meetup.

Food Partner

PopUpsters is the marketplace for PopUp events. It connects indie brands with their audience at events and retail spaces.

The post Announcing SF Food Waste Meetup With Back to the Roots, Imperfect + More appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Guest post by Humaira Faiz, associate director of impact investing at Arabella Advisors, and Eric Kessler, founder and managing director at Arabella Advisors. The views expressed are are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the views of Food+Tech Connect.

As Americans’ desire for healthier, more sustainable food options increases, the good food marketplace is rapidly maturing, creating opportunities for interested investors to drive social, environmental, and financial returns by helping to build a stronger good food supply chain.

At Arabella, we believe the recipe for a good food system has three essential ingredients:

1. A culture that demands good food
2. An infrastructure that supplies good food to meet that demand
3. A policy environment that enables a good food system to take root

Opportunities For Investing in Good Food

Developing the infrastructure to supply good food will require more than what philanthropy alone can deliver. Most of the solutions we need must come from private-sector commitments—specifically, from investments in companies across the food supply chain that can bring more sustainable, healthy, and affordable food to market.

Already, entrepreneurs and innovators are hard at work developing solutions designed to meet the good food market demands of the future. Below, we identify current opportunities across five areas of the good food supply chain—places where we believe capital investments can yield both compelling investment returns and meaningful impact in expanding the supply of good food.

Arabella’s commitment to building a better food system—and our ongoing work with policymakers, entrepreneurs, investors, and philanthropists—has afforded us insight into the rapidly developing good food supply chain. As we continue to monitor the investment landscape, we are very excited by the volume and diversity of direct investment deals that are emerging, and the potential for both social and financial returns. We look forward to hearing from and speaking with our clients and other partners about these opportunities for impact.

Please email us at goodfood [at] arabellaadvisors [dot] com to learn more about specific investment opportunities that work to build a good food system that provides access to healthy, sustainable, and affordable food for all.

Internet of Food is an editorial series exploring how we might use technology, new business models and design to guarantee healthy, safe and sufficient food for everyone. Join the conversation between March 23 and April 29. Share your ideas in the comments, on Twitter using #internetoffood, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn, and follow the conversation by subscribing to our newsletter.

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Humaira Faiz works with foundations and individuals to help them understand the field of impact investing, develop strategies, and create investment structures that achieve their social and environmental goals. Humaira has several years of investing experience, including with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. Humaira holds an MBA from New York University, and a BS in finance and a BA with honors in English from Rutgers University.
As founder and senior managing director of Arabella Advisors, Eric Kessler has helped build a social venture firm dedicated to making philanthropy more effective. Now, Eric is leading Arabella’s Good Food practice, which supports philanthropists and impact investors who are pursuing solutions to one of the great challenges of our time: transforming our food system to make delicious, nutritious, sustainably produced food accessible for all. Eric also serves on the Executive Committee of the James Beard Foundation, founded the Chef Action Network, and helped judge the 2016 Good Food Awards.

The post The Case For Investing In The Good Food Supply Chain appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

By Love Food Hate Waste NZ

Guest post by Joanne Wilson, angel investor at Gotham Gal Ventures. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views of Food+Tech Connect.

Unless you are a farmer or a passionate gardener, the food you are eat passes through many hands before it gets to you. Sure there are laws around how food should be handled, but we have all read one too many times about someone getting sick from something they ate.

Technology has made it possible for us to track almost everything. Fast casual restaurants and grocery stores, for example, source products from multiple suppliers. In today’s age, the supply chain should be digitized; nothing should be done on paper anymore. Every grocery store and restaurant should make a pledge to exclusively accept supplies that have been tracked from their source to them. A commitment to using this kind of in-depth platform would make it much easier to track down bad food and in turn bad behavior across the supply chain. This information should be built on an open source platform or be made publicly available, so consumers can see where their food is coming from at, let’s say, Whole Food or Chipotle.

Overconsumption and waste are also big issues. Americans consume nearly one ton of food a year. What is more amazing is that about 40 percent of all food goes to waste. In addition to the health implications of eating one ton of food annually, this amount of food consumption also means more food is wasted at each stage of the supply chain. These stats underscore the need and opportunity for change.

There is a lot of waste across the supply chain, and we have to figure out how to use technology to become more efficient. But a lot of waste comes from consumer behavior. In Europe, for example, the portions are half the size of what they are in the U.S. But over the past 30 years, fast food portions have grown substantially, as have the prevalence of diet related disease. When I grew up diabetes was not rampant and neither was obesity. This is a consumer behavior issue. Using technology to educate consumers and to give them more information about the food they eat, the calories they consume and the supply chain their food comes from has the potential to shift both our insane amount of waste and the health of our nation.

With all of the technology that is available today, there is no reason that we can not guarantee healthy, safe and sufficient food for everyone.

Internet of Food is an editorial series exploring how we might use technology, new business models and design to guarantee healthy, safe and sufficient food for everyone. Join the conversation between March 23 and April 29. Share your ideas in the comments, on Twitter using #internetoffood, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn, and follow the conversation by subscribing to our newsletter.

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Joanne Wilson has had many careers. She started out in retail, eventually moving to the wholesale arena. She then transitioned to the media side of the technology world, before once again reinventing herself as an investor. She is currently an active angel investor with a portfolio of over 90 companies such as Food52, Catchafire, Vengo, Nestio, Captureproof, Makers Row, LeTote, and Union Station. She has been involved in numerous realestate transactions from beginning to end and continues to make investments in that world. She is also an investor in a few restaurants in the New York area. In addition to these endeavors, Joanne has been involved in various education projects and served as chairperson at Hot Bread Kitchen, a non-profit committed to increasing access to the culinary industry for woman and minority entrepreneurs. She also sits on the board of The Highline.

Joanne has maintained her very popular blog, www.gothamgal.com for over 11 years. She loves to bake, cook, throw a good party, travel, read, collect art, do the crossword and stay on top of what’s happening around the globe and in NYC. Her most successful venture is being married to her best friend, Fred and raising their three kids- Jessica, Emily and Josh.

The post Joanne Wilson On Digitizing The Food Supply Chain appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

We face many big challenges when it comes to global food production. Resources like fresh water availability, arable land and oil are limited, and we must produce enough food to feed over 7 billion people. Yet, one third of the food we produce globally is wasted. All the while, we’re encountering more volatile, changing climates, which increase agricultural instability.

To overcome these obstacles, we must build new and innovative solutions to the way we grow, distribute and consume food. Over the past few months, I have had the opportunity to interview food startups who are working to solve these challenges on the Food Startups Podcast. Some are thriving already, while others are still in the early stages scraping and clawing to make it happen. Learn more about them below.

Back to the Roots®

Two Berkley undergrads graduated in 2009 and almost went into corporate America, but they decided to take a leap of faith and launch an at-home mushroom growing kit that uses recycled coffee grounds. What started out as a fun idea has grown into a nationally distributed brand that aims to be the “Pixar of food”. Its line of products, which now includs a self-cleaning fish tank, a garden in a can and a cereal brand with only 3 ingredients, are in Target, Home Depot and Whole Foods, among other retailers. Learn more about the startup’s growth in my interview with co-founder Nikhil Arora.

No Food Wasted

This app alerts consumers when food is close to going bad so that they can swoop in and purchase it at a discount. It’s a win-win for grocers and buyers and it prevents food from being wasted. No Food Wasted is live in Holland in 25 stores and is debating whether to enter the U.S. market in the near future.

U.S. startup FoodStar, which FTC covered in 2013, had a nearly identical business model and did not succeed. However, two years later, tech acceptance and global consciousness around food waste have both increased significantly.

Corigin

Corigin is a B2B company that converts forest and farm waste into bio-sustainable products for farmers including broad spectrum organic pesticides, organic amendments to neutralize alkaline water and soil amendments that help growers cut water and fertilizer use and increase crop yields. Check out my radio interview with Mike Woelk from Corigin here.

Hungry Harvest

This Maryland-based startup collects and delivers produce to consumers that may never makes it to grocery stores because it’s considered “ugly”. And for every bag of product it sells, it makes a matching donation to a local family in need. In the U.S., over 6 billion pounds of edible produce is wasted each year because it looks funny. Hungry Harvest is working to change our perception of what fruits and vegetables can and “should” look like. Learn more in my interview with co-founder Evan Lutz.

Tiny Farms

Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan advocates that we should eat bugs to stop global warming. Eating bugs over beef saves water, space and methane gas emissions. Tiny Farms founder Daniel Imrie-Situnayake and his team are pioneering the insect-eating movement. They developed an open source grow-at-home bug farming kit. Based out of Oakland, Tiny Farms is on a mission to help the average joe grow edible insects.

Acadia Harvest

Overfishing in our oceans has become a major problem. How big? A staple in international cuisine, the blue-fin tuna is heading towards extinction, to name one example. Headquartered in Maine, Acadia Harvest produces sustainable farm-raised fish using cutting edge aquaculture techniques in a “low to zero waste” facility. The startup currently farms California yellow tail and black sea bass.

Find this article valuable? Help us continue bringing you the news, insights and community you depend on by making a small contribution. Learn more HERE.

Want more food waste innovation inspiration? Check out these posts:

• Reducing Food Waste & Creating a Sustainable Supply Chain [Infographic]
• Handpick Turns 150M+ Food Porn Posts into Recipes, Aims to Reduce Food Waste
• Upcycling Food Waste into Fertilizer to Catalyze a New Green Revolution
• How Mario Batali’s Restaurants Are Fighting Food Waste
• Waste Not, Want Not: 6 Technologies to Reduce Food Waste

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Matt Aaron, a food entrepreneur since 2012, is sharing organic and exotic superfoods from South America. He is also producer and host of the Food Startups Podcast.

The post Turning Trash into Treasure: 6 Startups Reducing Food Waste appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

One third of all food produced in the world is wasted. That’s about $400B a year, finds a recent report by the Waste and Resources Action Program. The majority of that food waste is discarded in landfills and results in 3.3 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases annually.

To shed light on ways we can reduce waste in the food supply chain from farm to fork, Marylhurst University’s Online MBA in Sustainable Business program created the infographic below. Based on data from GreenBiz, The Organic Trade Association, Environmental Leader and other sources, it illustrates how converting farm waste into energy, embracing innovative, green distribution technologies, creating corporate sustainability initiatives, and more can help build a more efficient and sustainable food chain while increasing the bottom line for food businesses.

The graphic shares some interesting statistics on the potential of green production methods. For example, the market for converting global waste into energy is expected to jump from $17.98B in 2012 to $28.57B in 2016. It also notes that long-term sustainability initiatives can reduce waste while generating savings. For example, in 2012, ConAgra saved $22M while reducing carbon emissions by 26,700 tons and landfill waste by 23,000 tons. In 2009, food and beverage companies with green initiatives in place experienced a 19% decrease in energy costs year over year, a 17% decrease in waste and disposal cost, a 5% overall reduction in operating costs and, very interestingly, a 15% increase in customer acquisition, according to the graphic.

Consumers care increasingly more about what’s in their food and how it’s produced. In fact, 78% of families say they choose organic food, the graphic states. One thing is clear after a spin through this graphic: Food corporations, governments and startups alike need to embrace innovative solutions for waste reduction throughout the supply chain.

Want more food waste innovation inspiration? Check out these posts:

• Handpick Turns 150M+ Food Porn Posts into Recipes, Aims to Reduce Food Waste
• Upcycling Food Waste into Fertilizer to Catalyze a New Green Revolution
• How Mario Batali’s Restaurants Are Fighting Food Waste
• Waste Not, Want Not: 6 Technologies to Reduce Food Waste

The post Reducing Food Waste & Creating a Sustainable Supply Chain [Infographic] appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Guest post by Larry LeSueur, CEO of WISErg. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views of Food+Tech Connect.

Back in the 1970s, the Nixon administration’s controversial agriculture secretary Earl Butz implemented a number of programs designed to improve farming efficiency and lower the cost of food for consumers. With an emphasis on commodity crops like corn and soy, the effort did increase production and lower some prices but also had several negative consequences.

In less than a generation, small family farms became an endangered species as scale became essential to profitability. The extensive use of petrochemical-based fertilizers and pesticides along with crop monocultures created a vicious cycle of soil depletion and artificial enrichment that negatively impacted overall soil health. And as the American diet shifted to less expensive, but less healthy convenience foods made possible by low-cost inputs, there was an alarming increase in maladies like obesity, diabetes and heart disease. We got more food, but not better food.

Jump ahead four decades, and a number of forces are converging to once again change the face of the food industry. In recent years, increasingly health-conscious consumers have become concerned with not just what they eat, but where and how the food they eat is grown. In a return to the past, we now want better whole foods rather than packaged foods, but the definition of “better” has expanded to include attributes like pesticide-free and sustainably produced. Grocers large and small have responded by devoting more shelf space to organic and locally sourced produce and meats. This, in turn, is prompting producers to rethink their practices while creating an opening for smaller farms to once again operate profitably.

But it’s not just consumers that are focusing on sustainability in the food supply. Governments from the federal level down to the municipal level are now paying much more attention to what happens to food after it leaves the farm, with an emphasis on reducing the amount of uneaten food that ends up in landfills. In particular, state and local governments from Massachusetts to California have implemented policies that require consumers and businesses to recycle or compost food scraps, even imposing fines for non-compliance. As if on cue, technology and data have arrived to help transform the food industry and to meet these twin challenges.

Today, new smart systems allow grocers to convert food scraps into a nutrient rich organic fertilizer while providing data and analytics that help them identify the operational sources of waste and better manage inventory to reduce the loss. Reducing food waste isn’t just critical to the profitability of grocers, it’s important to ensuring an adequate food supply for an ever increasing population.

As these solutions become more commonplace, they promise to change the equation for food production by driving down the cost of organic farming practices, while increasing yield rates and making better use of the food being grown. As growers are presented with new, economically competitive options to traditional petroleum-based fertilizers, they will find it easier to maintain soil health and produce healthier crops, which can have the follow-on effect of reducing the need harsh chemicals necessary to fight pests and disease common in unhealthy plants.  In other words, today’s technology is helping to produce more food that’s also better food.  Ultimately the entire food ecosystems wins and the farmer’s hard work is realized in better food that is consumed and not trashed.

These innovations in food production are poised to drive a new “green revolution.” And they couldn’t be more timely. By some estimates, we’ll need to double the production of food in the U.S by 2050. When you consider that nearly 40 percent of the food produced today ends up as waste, it’s clear that the food production cycle needs a serious upgrade. We’ll need to do a much better job of harnessing technology and implementing new sustainability practices to ensure an adequate supply of good, healthy food for everyone.

Internet of Food is editorial series exploring how we might use technology, new business models and design to guarantee healthy, safe and sufficient food for everyone. Join the conversation between February 17 and April 2. Share your ideas in the comments, on Twitter using#internetoffood, Facebook or LinkedIn. 

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Larry LeSueur is committed to driving change through innovation. Motivated by the principle that there is hidden value in food waste, Larry co-founded WISErg, a bio-clean technology company leveraging software, biology and clean-tech values. WISErg’s focus is to minimize the food waste generated by retail grocers, commercial kitchens and other food-handling organizations while converting food waste into nutrient-rich organic fertilizer. WISErg’s technology empowers customers to better understand the causes of waste and better manage their food-based inventory and practices to prevent loss from occurring.

As CEO, Larry provides the strategic leadership for scalable revenue growth, technology improvements, partner and supplier relationships, and product and fertilizer sales efforts.

Prior to WISErg, Larry’s work experience spanned 20 years with Microsoft and Avanade. His areas of expertise include infrastructure technologies, strategic alliance development, customer experience initiatives and developing internal synergies between sales and engineering.​

The post Upcycling Food Waste into Fertilizer to Catalyze a New Green Revolution appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.