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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Food Waste

Apeel Raises $250 Million to Accelerate Its Fight Against Food Waste

Apeel, best known for its shelf-life-extension technology for produce, has raised a $250 million Series E round of funding led by Temasek.

Additional participants include Mirae Asset Global Investments, GIC, Viking Global Investors, Disruptive, Andreessen Horowitz, Tenere Capital, Sweetwater Private Equity, Tao Capital Partners, K3 Ventures, David Barber of Almanac Insights, Michael Ovitz of Creative Artists Agency, Anne Wojcicki of 23andMe, Susan Wojcicki of YouTube, and Katy Perry. The round brings Apeel’s total funding to date to over $635 million, according to a press release sent to The Spoon. 

The company’s food-safe powder coating was developed to cover pieces of produce, such as avocados, and act as a barrier against water and oxygen, which are major contributors to rot. Apeel will use the new funding in part to expand the availability of its coating product to additional parts of the U.S., U.K., and Europe. The company currently works with 40 retailers and 30 suppliers throughout eight different countries.

Earlier this year, Apeel acquired hyperspectral imaging company ImpactVision to add another layer of information about plant ripeness to its process. The advanced imaging technology can essentially look inside each piece of fruit and gather information about maturity, freshness, and phytonutrient content. With this information, suppliers and distributors can decide where each piece of produce can then go. For example, a more mature piece can go to a retailer closer by, so it can reach the store shelf sooner.

Apeel said today it will also use the new funds to advance such data and imaging capabilities and integrate those capabilities deeper into its system. The company suggested there could be more acquisitions in this area in the future. 

In the U.S. alone, 35 percent of all food produced goes to waste, equalling about $408 billion annually and 4 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gases. At the same time, more than 40 million Americans are considered food insecure. Recent data from Project Drawdown found reducing food waste to be first of 76 solutions meant to reverse climate change, ahead of plant-based diets and utility-scale solar projects. 

Apeel’s edible coating is one method of fighting food waste. Others include Hazel Technology’s sachet that extends produce shelf life and Ryp Labs (née StixFresh), which makes a sticker that does much the same thing.

“Suppliers have a clock that’s ticking,” Apeel CEO James Rogers explained last year at a Spoon event. At the end of the day, he said, “we have to make the most environmentally beneficially solution the cheapest, easiest solution.”

Too Good To Go Partners With Waze to Fight Food Waste

Too Good To Go is an app that connects users to stores and restaurants with unsold surplus food and offers it at a discounted price. This week, the company announced that it has partnered with Waze, a GPS navigation software app, to fight food waste.

The partnership is called Waze for Good initiative, and it will last throughout the month of August. On the Waze app, the map will feature 100 Too Good To Go partner businesses in the metro areas of Washington D.C., Seattle, New York, Philadelphia, and Portland. Some of the featured stores will include Just Salad, Auntie Anne’s La Colombe, Juice Press, PLNT Burger, Café d’Avignon.

Waze users will see dropped pins on the map for Too Good To Go business partners. When selected, these pins will give information about the business and the initiative. The participating partners will offer “surprise bags” of surplus food, costing around $3.99-$5.99 each, that users can pick up. Earlier this month, Too Good To Go partnered with JOKR, a ghost grocery store chain to offer similar $5 surprise bags of surplus products.

Approximately 40 percent of food waste in America comes from restaurants, grocery stores, and food service companies. A few other food rescue apps like FlashFood and Food Rescue Hero are focused on saving food from grocery retailers. Online grocers Misfits Markets and Imperfect Produce rescue products that aren’t visually fit for retailers. While Too Good To Go also works with grocery retailers, it is one of the few companies to focus on preventing food waste from restaurants.

Both the Too Good To Go and Waze app is available for free on iOS and Android phones.

Plant Jammer Expands Its Food Waste Tech to Aldi, RIMI Baltic

Aldi Süd and RIMI Baltic are among the first large food companies to implement Plant Jammer’s new food-waste-fighting widget on their websites, according to a press release from Plant Jammer sent to The Spoon. Consumers can use the widget to track and manage food waste in their own homes.

Plant Jammer is best known at this point for its AI-powered cooking assistant that helps users create recipes from the existing inventory in their fridges and pantries. The idea is to provide consumers with more ways to use all of their at-home food inventory, so less waste goes down the drain or into the landfill.

Copenhagen, Denmark-based Plant Jammer nabbed a €4 million (~$4.7 million USD) investment last year. At the time, Plant Jammer said it planned to expand by licensing its API to third parties who could then build customized experiences for their own customers.  

The Empty Your Fridge widget is an offshoot of that goal. Companies can implement the technology with a single line of code. From the end-user perspective, a person simply selects the ingredients they have at home in the fridge and receive a customized recipe from the system in return. Users can also input preferences and dietary concerns, factors that will also impact what recipe gets generated by the system. 

Worldwide, food waste at consumer-facing levels, including the home, is a multibillion-dollar problem that’s also a big contributor to global emissions. The United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 12.3 aims in part to halve global food waste at retail and consumer levels. Reaching that goal will be the work of governments, nonprofits, consumers, and startups building out new processes and technologies.

Helping consumers learn more about how to use their existing inventories will be a big part of this. Speaking in a statement today, Plant Jammer CEO Michael Haase noted that a “lack of cooking flexibility” in many consumers is a direct contributor to at-home food waste.

Plant Jammer says it aims to launch the widget on 100 food company websites by the end of 2021 and on 5,000 by 2023. Longer term, the company hopes to educate 1 billion people on cooking and food waste.

Rens Original Announces New Climate-Neutral Sneaker Made From Coffee Waste

Finnish startup Rens Original successfully funded its first sneakers made from coffee waste and recycled plastic water bottles via a Kickstarter campaign. Today, the company announced it will be launching a second Kickstarter campaign for its upcoming climate-neutral sneaker.

The shoe is called NOMAD, and the company used feedback from its customers to design it. Climate neutral refers to reaching zero greenhouse gas emissions by reducing emissions released. The remaining emissions are offset through certain practices and projects. Rens aims to be climate neutral in every step of creating its sneaker, and will work with Climate Partner to achieve this.

NOMAD will use coffee waste and other undisclosed waste-free and low-impact materials. Rens’ first sneaker used 21 cups of coffee waste and six bottles of recycled plastic per pair. NOMAD will use coffee waste and other undisclosed waste-free and low-impact materials. The upcoming sneaker will be waterproof and designed for activities like hiking, walking, and trail running.

It is estimated that the fashion industry emits 10 percent of humanity’s carbon emissions. On top of this, sneakers are made from problematic materials like synthetic rubber, nylon, and plastic. If sneakers are thrown out and taken to a landfill, these materials take a long time to decompose.

Rens Orignal is not the only company trying to target both the issues of the fashion industry and food waste. MoEa recently launched a Kickstarter campaign for its sneakers that will be made from grape, pineapple, corn, cactus, and apple waste. At the beginning of this year, Adidas shared that it would be using mycelium leather from Bolt Threads to make shoes.

For its first Kickstarter, Rens raised over $500 million USD, and this time around it aims to double this with a goal of raising $1 million USD. Those interested in backing the project can purchase a pair of NOMADs for the super early bird price of $89 USD. Eight hours after the launch of the campaign, the price will rise to $109 USD.

Food Tech News: Online Food Bank, Upcycled Cacao Fruit Bites, and $10M for Gluten-Free Snack Brand

If you feel like you’ve fallen behind in the fast-paced world of food tech, you’ve come to the right place. In this week’s Food Tech News roundup, we have stories on Feeding America’s new online platform, Costco’s partnership with Uber, a snack brand’s $10 million funding round, and one of the first companies to receive the Upcycled Food Certification.

Food bank launches online grocery ordering for those facing food insecurity

Feeding America is one of the largest food banks in the country, and this week the non-profit began offering online ordering. Called Order Ahead, food is ordered through a Feeding America network food bank or partner food on a smartphone, tablet, or computer. The order can then be picked up at schools, libraries, or a drive-thru distribution center. Certain markets will also be offering home delivery. Those requiring food assistance unfortunately might feel embarrassed or stigmatized, so offering an online platform allows for the option of being more discreet.

CaPao is one of the first companies to receive the Upcycled Food Certification

CaPao has created a snack product that is made from upcycled cacao fruit. The brand was developed in Mondelēz International’s SnackFuture innovation and venture hub, and this week announced that it is one of the first companies to receive the recently launch Upcycled Food Certification. After cacao beans have been extracted from the cacao pod, there is about 70 percent of the pod remaining goes to waste, and this remaining fruit is used in the snack product. CaPao sources this potential food waste from Cabosse Naturals, a food and beverage company that uses cacao pods to make various ingredients. Using the upcycled cacao fruit, CaPao produces three flavors of snack bites: mango cashew coconut, golden berry apricot chia, and cherry almond cocoa. The products are available for purchase on the company’s website and retailers in Southern California.

Photo by Henry & Co. on Unsplash

Costco partners with Uber to trial same-day delivery

Costco is currently trialing same-day grocery delivery with Uber at 25 Texas locations in Dallas, Houston, and Austin. Uber has announced that its drivers will be able to deliver groceries in minutes to a few hours. To use the service trial in Texas, customers must order at least $35 worth of Costco groceries and products. Costo currently also works with Instacart to offer same-day delivery.

Gluten-free snack maker raises $10 million

Quinn produces various gluten-free snacks, and this week the company secured $10 million in its Series B funding round. NewRoad Capital Partners led the round, and Echo Capital, Boulder Food Group, and Sunil Thakor also participated. The capital will be used for product innovation, company growth, and be put towards Quinn’s mission of supporting regenerative agriculture. Quinn uses gluten-free ingredients like sorghum, cassava, and corn for its pretzels sticks and chips, stuffed pretzels, and flavored popcorn. The company provides a map of where its ingredients are sourced and a list of farmers (who are taking steps to reduce their environmental impact) it buys from to provide transparency to consumers. Quinn’s products are available for purchase in approximately 10,000 retailers nationwide.

Choco Raises $100M to Digitize Restaurant Food Procurement

Restaurant tech company Choco announced today it has raised $100 million in in Series B funding led by growth equity firm Left Lane Capital. Insight Partners along with existing investors Coatue Management and Bessemer Venture Partners also participated in the round, according to a press release sent to The Spoon. Choco has raised $171.5 million to date.

The company’s mobile app effectively digitizes the relationship between restaurants and their suppliers, allowing the two groups to chat with one another through the app. Restaurants can place orders directly through the Choco app as well as view and edit all order sheets. Choco also released a new feature at the beginning of 2021 specifically designed for multi-unit restaurants to give them a more comprehensive overview of not just what they’re ordering but where it comes from and who is in charge of that relationship. At the time, Choco’s Global Industry Advisor, Chelsea van Hooven, said multi-unit restaurants make up about 40 percent of Choco’s current user base.

The company’s original pitch was around fighting food waste in the restaurant industry. While that remains a part of Choco’s overall benefits for restaurants, wasted time and money are also now part of the overall package of benefits the company is pitching. Replacing siloed paper-and-pen processes with digital ones, where all data is viewable from a single place, has the potential to cut hidden costs in the back of house and in doing so improve restaurant margins. 

Digital was largely seen as a “nice-to-have” feature before the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. Now, many claim that digitizing operations is a “must have,” and that those who don’t will wind up getting left behind.

While that may be true for large chains (think McDonald’s or Chipotle), it remains to be seen how much this full digitization of the back of house can actually help smaller independent restaurants. In other words, we have yet to see whether the cost to implement and run technology is worth the returns it brings to these smaller restaurants.

Choco says demand for its platform is up and partly driven by the pandemic pushing more restaurants to go digital. The company currently has over 10,000 active restaurants and suppliers on its platform. It will use the new funding to expand within its six current markets: the United States, Germany, France, Spain, Austria, and Belgium. The company will also expand into several new markets, and has plans to double its head count by end of the year.

Afresh CEO Matt Schwartz Explains How AI Can Help Grocery Retailers Place “the Perfect” Order

For grocery stores, measuring demand and managing orders for fresh foods can be a maddeningly difficult task that more often than not ends in lots of unused food getting thrown out. After all, bananas have a much shorter shelf life than, say, a bag of rice, and a lot of existing supply-chain technologies and processes were designed with the latter in mind.

“Existing tools don’t work for fresh food,” says Matt Schwartz CEO and cofounder of a San Francisco, California-based tech company called Afresh.

Afresh often gets labeled a “food waste” company and listed among other efforts to curb the problem of food waste at consumer-facing outlets like grocery stores. While Afresh’s store-level ordering platform can certainly help grocery retailers cut down on food waste, that’s not necessarily the main driving force behind the company. 

Over a call recently, Schwartz told The Spoon he thinks of Afresh as more of a “fresh food company” than food waste company. The system uses AI to analyze store-level data around customer demand, shipments of fresh food, sales of it, pricing and other factors. Gathering all that disparate data together, the system then makes ordering recommendations for grocers to help them create what Schwartz calls “the perfect order.” That is, “an amount that keeps you in stock for the shopper but also doesn’t cause you to drive waste from having it sit there.”

By way of example, he says it’s the difference between 14 cases of blueberries and 18: “Those four cases make all the difference when it comes to billions of pounds of waste.” 

Getting that perfect number can be complicated. Continuing with the blueberry example, Schwartz says there are a few major things grocery retailers have to consider, the first of them being customer demand. In other words, How many blueberries will shoppers want over the next few days? Retailers also have to consider existing store inventory, which can be tricky to calculate for something like berries. 

Reconciling these two things — how much a retailer has versus how much they think they will sell, also requires other types of data. That includes how many cases the shelf can hold, the shelf life of the blueberries, and the frequency of shipments, to name a few. The Afresh system connects to grocery retailers’ existing systems, then compiles the above data into a single place that a retailer making an order can view from an iPad.  

“In the long term our systems will drive decisions around inventory, forecasting, etc.,” said Schwartz.  

In a recent post for The Spoon, food tech investors Seana Day and Brita Rosenheim noted that “increased workflow and data automation solutions in the food supply chain holds significant power to help the food supply chain leapfrog into digitalization.” That includes grocery retailers, and Afresh is among several companies trying to enable this leapfrog movement. Seattle, Washington-based ShelfEngine offers a similar fresh food inventory management platform, as does a company called Crisp. Rising consumer demand for both fresh food and a more reliable supply chain (hello, panic shopping) mean we can expect a lot more software in this area in the near future.

For its part, Afresh is currently live in hundreds of stores, says Schwartz. He declined to name specific stores or chains, but said his company’s biggest partner does about $10 billion in sales every year. 

The company has raised a total of $32.8 million to date, with its most recent round being a Series A fundraise towards the end of 2020.

Comet Bio Raises $22M Series C for its Upcycled Ingredients

Comet Bio, which manufactures various ingredients through upcycling, announced today that it has completed its Series C with an initial close of $22 million. The round was led by Open Prairie, the Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC), BDC Capital, as well as existing investor Sofinnova Partners.

With headquarters in London, Ontario and Schaumberg, Illinois Comet Bio takes agricultural leftovers from farms and upcycles them through a proprietary process to turn them into a number of different ingredient products including a prebiotic dietary fiber called Arrabina, sugar syrup alternatives called Sweeterra, as well as animal and bionutrition industrial products.

Upcycling is a trend we follow closely here at The Spoon, and it’s one that thankfully seems to be catching on with a number of startups. ReGrained upcycles grain from beer brewing into bread and even ice cream. Kern Tec upcycles stone fruit pits into oils and and alternative dairy products. And Rind produces upcycled dried fruit snacks.

In fact, there’s been so much momentum going into upcycled foods that the field now has its own certification label. As my colleague, Mike Wolf wrote recently:

The interest in upcycled food is also a part of a broader interest in companies up and down the food system in tackling the problem of food waste. The pandemic helped accelerate this interest as everyone saw entire crops go to waste, but the reality is rising costs of food products has made reducing food waste not only appealing to sustainability-oriented organizations, but also to the bottom-line focused types in big corporates at CPG, retail and restaurants.

In the press announcement, Comet Bio said it will use the new funds to invest in its product innovation and health claims development.

 

Flashfood Partners With Giant to Bring Its Food Waste App to More Grocery Stores

Up to now, Flashfood’s surplus grocery/food waste-fighting service has enjoyed a noteworthy but fairly small presence among American consumers. New developments are set to change that. The Canada-based company recently announced an expansion with The Giant Company that will make the Flashfood app and service available in many more grocery stores across the U.S.

Carlisle, Pennsylvania-based Giant (part of Ahold Delhaize USA), operates grocery stores in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia. The company trialed Flashfood’s service at four stores beginning in 2020. Flashfood CEO Josh Domingues said that after some initial hesitation (Giant originally said no to the partnership), the store saw a measurable reduction in food waste, net new customers at the store, and customers spending more money while in the store. Domingues did not provide exact numbers for that deal, but said that overall his company’s service has diverted 25 million pounds of food from the landfill and saved shoppers over $70 million.

The Giant partnership will eventually reach all Giant stores as well as Giant subsidiary Martin’s stores. For now, the Flashfood service is available in more than 30 stores, with a plan to be in 170 stores by fall 2021. 

Flashfood’s service lets consumers buy meat, dairy, produce, and other items that are nearing their sell-by dates at 50 percent of the retail cost. Historically, grocery retailers have thrown out food that’s about to expire, and most still do. However, efforts to reduce food waste at the retail level have increased over the last decade. From that change has come a pack of companies that will “rescue” surplus, ugly, or expiring food and sell it directly to consumers. Imperfect Foods and Misfits Market both started out rescuing produce. Both companies are now full-blown e-commerce grocery stores. Another notable company is Too Good to Go, which resells surplus food from restaurants, is expanding across the U.S.  

Flashfood sticks mainly to the grocery store at this point. Users download the Flashfood app and can browse available food at participating grocery stores in their area. The most commonly sold items, says Domingues, are dairy and produce. Meat is another good seller, and “mystery boxes” — shoebox-sized packages of mixed items — are also hugely popular. 

Once the customer has placed an order, a store shopper gathers the items, scans them, and places them in the “Flashfood zone” which is just a temperature-controlled case for food that’s usually located at the front of the store. Customers pick their items up the same day they place the order.

Outside of the Flashfood app itself, the operation is intentionally simple. There are no QR codes or smartphones needed to automatically unlock the fridge door, nor is there automated self-service check-in of any kind. Once a user arrives at the store, they simply head to customer service, where a human being helps them retrieve their order.

“It’s very difficult to be simple with technology,” Domingues says, suggesting that the complexity and “potential frustration” more tech could mean for the store employees is not worth it at the moment. “The mission is to reduce food waste and to feed families more affordable. The vessel that we’re doing that through is with an app and a partnership with our grocery stores.”

Instead, for now, Flashfood will continue its focus on grocery stores. The Giant rollout follows an expanded deal with Meijer Flashfood struck earlier this year. Flashfood is also in Hy-Vee stores in Wisconsin, and is, of course, available across Canada. The company plans to make its service available at more U.S. stores in the near future. 

Kern Tec Upcycles Stone Fruit Pits Into Oils and Alternative Dairy Products

One of the best parts about summer (in my opinion) is that it is stone fruit season, and I always look forward to consuming an abundance of nectarines, apricots, cherries, plums, and peaches. After the vibrant, juicy fruit flesh is devoured, the rock-hard pit is leftover. Pits are not obviously edible and seem like something you would just toss in the garbage or compost. However, a start-up called Kern Tec, based in Austria, is developing methods to transform the discarded pits from fruit to create a variety of consumer packaged good products.

This week I spoke on the phone with Sebastion Jeschko, one of the co-founders of Kern Tec, who said that the inspiration to start the company came when he and his co-founders spoke with local farmers about what part of the stone fruit industry most often went to waste. After processing fruit, there was no obvious use for the pits, which molded quickly and were considered waste. The challenging part of using pits is extracting the seed from the hard outer hull. While the company can’t yet disclose many details on the process, Kern Tec has figured out how to separate these seeds from the outer hull. Once extracted, they can be used as regular nuts, as stone fruit seeds contain a high amount of protein, healthy unsaturated fats, and vitamin E.

At the moment, the company has two products available on the market in Europe. One is a chocolate nougat spread made from a base of upcycled apricot seeds. The other is various oils made from the seeds of plum, apricot, and cherries, which according to Jeschko, has a sweet, fruity taste. Kern Tec is currently in the process of developing non-dairy milk and yogurt alternatives from pits, and will also eventually create a protein powder.

With more and more mouths to feed on a daily basis, it doesn’t make sense to toss things like agricultural side streams that have the potential to be transformed into food. To that end, plenty of other companies are now developing uses for these side streams. The Supplant Company upcycles post-harvest byproducts from wheat, rice, and corn crops to create a new type of sugar. Coffee cherries, the vibrant red fruit that surrounds a coffee bean, is normally tossed, but The Coffee Cherry Co. upcycles this product to create a powder for baked goods and teas. In addition to upcycling agricultural side streams, there are a plethora of companies using food that would otherwise go to waste to create new products.

Kern Tec is currently in the three-month-long incubator through ProVeg International, and which is set to finish in the next few weeks. The startup is currently talking with investors, and after the program, will be closing its first funding round.

Upcycled Food Association Launches Open Enrollment as Upcycling Momentum Grows

This week, the Upcycled Food Association announced that it had opened the doors for anyone who wants to apply for certification.

This news marks the culmination of a year of steady progress for the organization, which is made up of a number of startups and larger companies creating products out of food waste that would have otherwise gone to the landfill.

Last May, the organization put out its official definition for the term “upcycled food:” “Upcycled foods use ingredients that otherwise would not have gone to human consumption, are procured and produced using verifiable supply chains, and have a positive impact on the environment.”

At the beginning of 2021, the group launched its certification program for upcycled foods, and this past April it showed off its new certification mark. And during the first half of this year, the group ran a pilot program with 15 members to work out the kinks for its certification process, resulting in companies like Regrained getting certification for its ingredient product.

Now, every company who wants to apply for UFA certification can do so.

For an industry that some market sizers have as big as $46.7 billion, why did it take so long to get serious about certification? While making something valuable out of discarded food outputs is a centuries-old practice, the rapidly growing interest by consumers and new companies positioning their product in recent years was a signal for the industry to get serious about creating an organization that could create a standard.

Retailers also see a bright future in upcycled food. Whole Foods named upcycling as one of the big trends for 2021, while Kroger, a supporter of the UFA, has been investing in young upcycled food brands. And, in the end, it’s this interest by the food retailers that may matter most as they will likely make compliance with UFA certification as one of the key requirements before getting into the store for any upcycled product.

The interest in upcycled food is also a part of a broader interest in companies up and down the food system in tackling the problem of food waste. The pandemic helped accelerate this interest as everyone saw entire crops go to waste, but the reality is rising costs of food products has made reducing food waste not only appealing to sustainability-oriented organizations, but also to the bottom-line focused types in big corporates at CPG, retail and restaurants.

There’s More to Food Waste Innovation Than Tech, According to ReFED’s Dana Gunders

This being The Spoon, a lot of our discussions around food waste concern the innovative technologies that could help us eventually curb the multi-billion-dollar problem and meet national and international targets to halve food waste by 2050. But as we learned today at our Food Waste Insights and Innovation Forum, done in partnership with nonprofit ReFED, tech is only one piece of the solution. When it comes to food waste, true innovation is as much about new business models, behaviors, and ways of thinking as it is about advances in, say, machine learning or computer vision.  

Dana Gunders, the Managing Director and a founder of ReFED, kicked off the event by asking two important questions related to food waste: What is innovation, and what is the problem we’re trying to solve with it?

The second question is the easier one to answer, and Gunders called on some well-known stats as a way of explaining how “radically inefficient” our food system actually is:

  • 35 percent of all food in the U.S. goes uneaten
  • $408 billion annually is spent in the U.S. on food that is never eaten
  • More than 40 million Americans are considered food insecure

Food waste also accounts for 4 percent of U.S. GHG emissions (that’s 58 million cars worth’ of greenhouse gases), 14 percent of all freshwater use, 18 percent of all cropland use, and 24 percent of landfill inputs.

Citing data from Project Drawdown, Gunders pointed out that reducing food waste ranked first of 76 solutions meant to reverse climate change — ahead of plant-based diets, utility-scale solar, wind turbines, and other well-known contenders.

New innovations will help us reach those targets and cut down overall food waste, but as we learned at today’s event, “innovation” means different things to different stakeholders when it comes to food waste. “People talk about food waste as if it were one problem. It’s not,” Gunders said at the event. “This is a complex set of inefficiencies and we need a whole suite of solutions to address that.” Gunders is, of course, referring to the wide variety of ways in which food is wasted along the supply chain. Post-harvest food loss looks different from food thrown out at the grocery store. Both of those in turn look different than food that we dump down our kitchen drains. In all of these scenarios, food waste looks different, so it follows that the solutions will vary greatly based on which part of the supply chain they are aimed at.

Tech is one obvious tool when it comes to innovation, and at this point, companies are working with everything from machine learning and image recognition to hyperspectral imaging and sensors to fight food waste. These and other technologies can track waste, help retailers forecast more precisely, and even tell us which pieces of fruit will ripen soonest in any given crop. 

But, as mentioned above, technology is only one piece of innovation. Equally important are new processes and business models as well as what Gunders calls “cultural evolution.”

New business models around food waste have been emerging steadily over the last few years, many of them around grocery and/or restaurant services selling surplus food. This is a model popularized by the likes of Imperfect Foods, Too Good to Go, Flashfood, and many others. Upcycled products are another example, as is offering financial incentives to managers, as Sodexo is doing. 

Cultural evolution, meanwhile, refers to what Gunders called “innovation on a much simpler level.” It’s smaller actions that work together to make the public more aware of food waste and encourage changes in behavior. Signage in dining halls about food waste or allowing customers to taste a product before they buy it are two examples.

In the wake a of the pandemic, a new administration, and an increased sense of urgency around climate change and food equity, the culture in the U.S. right now is open to change. As Gunders pointed out, now is the time for businesses with food waste solutions to consider where they fit into these changes and how they might test their customers accordingly.