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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Waste Reduction

Market Map: Food Waste Innovation in 2019 Version 1.1

At the beginning of May, we launched our Food Waste Innovation market map identifying companies building products and services that tackle the 1.3 billion-ton food waste problem.

It’s no small obstacle. With roughly one-third of the world’s food going to waste each year, it’s little wonder that entrepreneurs, startups, corporations and, heck, even the government are starting to address the problem — and using tech to find solutions.

After publishing Version 1 of our market map, The Spoon’s tip line — as well as our individual inboxes — were absolutely flooded with suggestions for other entities to consider for the map. To ensure our map was as accurate as could be, we decided to release an updated version, 1.1, reflecting some of those suggestions.

As is the case with any market map (or company list, for that matter), this isn’t exhaustive. Food waste is a big problem and there are plenty of stealthy startups just getting off the ground that we will surely add as they become known.

While the categories haven’t changed from version to version, we’ve refined some company listings and added others. The hope is to provide as clear picture of the major movers and shakers tackling food waste. And of course, if you have even more tips for future food waste maps, drop us a line.

LiveNation to Ban Single-Use Plastics, Including Food Trays and Straws, at Music Festivals

LiveNation, one of the world’s largest concert promoters, announced this week it will ban all single-use plastics at its venues and festivals by 2021. That includes things like plastic straws and food trays, in addition to water bottles.

The move is part of a new set of goals outlined by Live Nation’s coalition Green Nation, which addresses sustainability, including reducing fossil fuels, using more renewable energy sources, and finding more sustainable sources for food and beverage at concerts and festivals.

Live Nation’s status in the music world can’t be understated: the company holds around 35,000 events worldwide every year and claims that, on average, a Live Nation show starts every 16 minutes around the world.

That includes major festivals like the CMA Fest (71,000 attendees in 2018), Bonnaroo (80,000 attendees), Reading and Leeds (over 90,000 attendees), and Download (110,000-person capacity). Do the math, and that’s a lot of single-use water bottles and beer cups.

The challenge of replacing plastic bottles at something like a music festival is finding an alternative that’s both safe and cost-efficient. Festivals and concert venues typically forbid any kind of glass beverage container, and while plenty of major CPGs are experimenting with alternative packaging, they’ve yet to find an industry-standard replacement for the plastic bottle.

Live Nation has said it will trial plant-based water bottles across Europe throughout the rest of 2019.

The company joins a growing number of festivals, many in the UK, that have committed in some form over the last several months to ditch single-use plastics. Most notably, the Glastonbury music festival banned single-use plastic drinking bottles earlier this year and announced that food/bev vendors at the show will no longer be allowed to offer plastic containers for drinks, either to festival-goers or backstage. Billboard notes that in 2017, the most recent edition of the festival, more than 1 million plastic bottles were sold at the festival.

The Green Nation coalition’s new goals also build on Live Nation’s Sustainability Rocks program, which has worked to eliminate plastic straws at U.S. venues, bring plant-based food options (like the Impossible Burger) to concerts, and add onsite composting programs at venues.

The Loop Launches Reusable Packaging Program in the U.S., Adds Kroger and Walgreens as Partners

We were excited when The Loop announced its re-useable packaging program in January of this year, as a number of big name CPG companies like Pepsi, Nestlé and Unilever had hopped on board. Today, The Loop announced that its waste reducing program has now launched here in the U.S., and added Kroger and Walgreens to its roster of partners.

As a refresher, The Loop (an initiative of waste management company Terracycle) sells name-brand CPG products in a way that harkens back to the milkman of yore. Products like ice cream, pancake mix and orange juice are sold in re-useable containers made from materials like metal or glass. These products ship directly to consumers who, after using them, put the empty containers back into the tote they arrived in, and The Loop picks everything back up to be sterilized, re-filled and re-sold.

While our plastic waste problem is huge in this country right now, sadly, The Loop’s availability is not. It’s initial pilot programs will only be available in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S., specifically New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Washington, D.C.

If you are lucky enough to live in one of the select areas, you can visit loopstore.com, thekrogerco.com/loop or walgreens.com/loop to place an order. Though the press release didn’t mention it, CNN reports that customers will be able to pick up their Loop orders and drop off the empties at Kroger and Walgreens. And while all purchases happen exclusively online right now, Loop’s press release did say that down the road, there may be an option to purchase Loop products in stores at select Kroger and Walgreens markets.

The Loop is launching at the right time as companies across the food industry are looking at ways to reduce their plastic use. Earlier this week, Whole Foods announced it was getting rid of plastic straws, reducing the size of its plastic produce bags, and is no longer using hard plastic containers for its rotisserie chickens. And on a much broader scale, the EU voted to ban single-use plastics by 2021.

Today’s move by Kroger also reaffirms why we put them on The Spoon’s Food Tech 25: Companies Creating the Future of Food list this week. While we don’t know how U.S. consumers will react to The Loop’s re-packaging program, at least Kroger (and The Loop and Walgreens) is recognizing the issue of plastic waste and experimenting with a way to help reduce it.

KFC Parent Company Ramps Up Sustainability Plans for China, Introduces Reusable Baskets

Yum China this week became the first restaurant company in mainland China to receive the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) label for converting its used cooking oil into sustainable biodiesel.

According to a press release, the company launched a pilot of its cooking oil project in 2018 in Chengdu, where all Yum China-owned KFC locations in the city converted their used cooking oil to biodiesel. For the project, Yum worked with biodiesel plants, oil storage sites, and waste collection companies.

For many quick-service restaurants, cooking oils are essential for business; they’re used for frying, grilling, and numerous other cooking tasks around the kitchen. In recent years, restaurants have shifted away from oils packed with trans fats to so-called “healthier” options like sunflower and soybean oil.

But even these healthier oils take their toll on the environment (and your insides, but that’s a story for another day). The EPA notes that cooking oils, whether from vegetable or animal sources, can “cause devastating effects” on the environment: they can suffocate plants and aquatic animals, clog up shorelines, catch fire, and destroy wildlife.

China is one of the world’s largest producers of waste oil, which is a huge environmental risk (to say nothing of the country’s gutter oil problem), but also a huge opportunity if more companies commit to helping turn it into sustainable fuel.

Yum China operates all mainland China locations of Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut, and owns the Little Sheep, East Dawning, and COFFii & JOY brands. Factoring in all these restaurants, that’s more than 8,600 restaurants across the country. In other words, there’s a lot of cooking oil to be recycled, and a company of Yum’s status could help set a standard for other restaurants across the country.

Recycled oil isn’t the only sustainability initiative Yum China has been up to of late. In the same press release, the company announced it had introduced reusable baskets to over 6,000 KFC locations across China.

The introduction of reusable baskets is in keeping with KFC plans here in the U.S., which include the chain converting to 100 percent renewable plastics by 2025. According to the press release, the move is expected to save more than 2,000 tons of paper per year and cut down the total amount of waste in Yum restaurants by 20 percent on average.

China, meanwhile, is turning itself into a hotbed of activity for foodtech solutions. VC firm Bits x Bites just launched an incubator in Shanghai that partners startups with major CPGs like Danone and Coca-Cola. Waste reductions, be it oils, plastics, or other materials, will no doubt play a role in some of those partnerships moving forward.

Newsletter: Food Waste Innovation in 2019, Amazon Go(es) to NYC

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Food Waste Innovation in 2019

Fighting food waste is one of the next important frontiers of foodtech. In the course of just a few years, a question historically left on the periphery of the food industry has become a central issue: How do we curb the billions of tons of food that goes wasted around the world each year?

While no one’s going to solve the problem overnight, it’s encouraging that so many groups, from massive corporations to energetic startups to government bodies, are stepping forward with new ways to combat food waste. In fact, there are so many of them now we put together a market map this week to outline the different areas of food waste innovation. From new approaches to packaging to leveraging apps to the power of upcycling, these are the companies to watch in this important new sector.

Download the map below, and let us know if we missed anyone you think should be added.

Solar Foods CEO Wants to Make Food From Thin Air

Granted, if we start making food from thin air, waste could be considerably less problematic. That’s not wishful thinking on my part, either. As has been pointed out recently, Finnish company Solar Foods is using air and electricity to create a new kind of protein. It’s in a similar vein to what Impossible Foods is doing to create its “bleeding” meat.

Over the weekend, Mike dug into the details on a podcast with Solar Foods CEO Pasi Vainikka. If you’re wondering when food made from air will actually land on your dinner plate (sooner than you’d think), take a listen to Mike’s interview.

Amazon Go Debuts in NYC — With Cash

Speaking of glaringly large issues in foodtech: the fight around the cashless business model isn’t going away anytime soon, either. And, of course, Amazon’s a central figure in that fight, thanks to its Amazon Go stores, which were originally built on the cashless business model.

That hasn’t worked out so well for the Seattle giant. As more voices have risen in objection to cashless retail (citing the model’s discriminatory nature towards unbanked and underbanked populations), Amazon has felt the pressure. With restaurant chains like Sweetgreen reversing their cashless models and entire cities refusing to grant exemptions to retailers, Amazon has had to pivot away from purely cashless Go stores.

Hence, the new Amazon Go store, which debuted in NYC today. As Chris noted, “Once your shopping is done, there is a counter in the middle of the store where a person with a handheld scanner checks you out, accepts payment and will even give you a paper receipt.”

I have no doubt that at some point in our lifetimes we’ll see the country go cashless. But with digital discrimination become as big an issue as food waste, greenbacks aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Onward!

Jenn

Market Map: Food Waste Innovation in 2019

Roughly one third of the world’s food goes to waste each year. It rots on at the bottom of grocery store bins, gets thrown out with unused restaurant inventory, or is hiding in some deep, forgotten corner of your pantry (probably growing fangs). The U.S. alone wastes enough food to fill a 90,000-seat stadium  — every day.

But thanks to the prevalence of mobile technology, advances in areas like hyperspectral imaging, and a lot of creative brains at work, groups — from young startups to major corporations to government bodies — are finding innovative solutions to the food waste issue.

We put together a market map of companies finding new ways of reducing food waste, and in some cases eliminating it altogether. As with all of our market maps, we’ll be iterating and improving this one over time; if you think we’ve missed anyone, drop us a line in the comments below or email us at tips@thespoon.tech.

Click on the map to enlarge it.

Yelp Has a New Initiative to Help Reduce Plastic Waste in Restaurants

Yelp gave a nod to Earth Day this morning by launching a new initiative that rates restaurants’ eco-friendliness factor.

With Yelp’s Green Practices initiative, Yelp reviewers can answer questions around a restaurant’s takeout packaging — whether the business offers compostable containers, uses plastic bags, or has discounts for things like bringing your own reusable beverage mug. The interface to do so looks and functions much like any other Yelp rating tool:

According to a blog post by Yelp product manager Jason Purdy, Yelp will use the information from the surveys “to better understand restaurant behaviors across the country and inform how we surface information about restaurant sustainability for consumers.”

Single-use plastics are just the start. Purdy noted in the same blog post that Yelp is working with a number of different partners to gather and present information about multiple sustainability issues, including the State of California Air Resource Board, the City of Los Angeles Green Business Program, and Clean Water Action’s ReThink Disposable program.

Purdy’s post also said Yelp will eliminate single-use plastic cups, plates, and utensils from all U.S. offices by the end of 2019.

Reducing packaging waste is a huge topic in the restaurant industry right now, with an ever-growing number of businesses announcing various moves to tackle their reliance on single-use plastic. Starbucks announced last year it would eliminate single-use plastic straws from its 28,000 locations by 2020. McDonald’s is trying to find a more sustainable hot/cold cup. KFC has said it will convert to renewable plastic sources by 2025.

Beyond businesses, the EU vowed it will ban single-use plastics by 2021. Stateside, Seattle became the first major U.S. city to ban single-use plastics, in 2018; California and Washington, D.C. NYC currently has legislation in place to enact a similar ban.

To be honest, there are probably enough initiatives in place at this point to fill a 1,500-word post. The question is whether they’ll have enough of an effect on consumer behavior to change our relationship with single-use plastics in restaurants. To be sure, programs like Yelp’s will get people thinking more about how much waste gets created just by getting a to-go order. Now it’s a matter of using these types of initiatives to get consumers beyond thinking and into action.

Starbucks Will Power More Than 300 Texas Stores With Solar

Starbucks made another move towards investing in green energy today when it announced a partnership with solar company Cypress Creek Renewables. In a post on the coffee giant’s Stories site, Starbucks noted that the two companies, along with U.S. bank, are “teaming up on a portfolio of farms across Texas.” The partnership includes two solar farms that will power 360 Starbucks stores across Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Plano, and Arlington.

The post also noted that Starbucks is investing in six other Cypress-owned solar farms in Texas, and predicts that the eight total farms will reduce the company’s total carbon footprint by 101,000 tons annually.

The Seattle-based coffee retailer isn’t new to solar initiatives. In April 2017, Starbucks invested in NC-47, solar farm in North Carolina to power around 600 Starbucks locations in that state as well as Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C. In September of 2018, Starbucks announced its Greener Stores initiative, which, among other things, aims to power all stores with 100 percent renewable energy by 2025. That includes solar as well as wind — in November of 2018, the company invested in an Illinois wind farm to power almost 350 of its locations.

Starbucks isn’t alone, either, in its plans to ramp up the sustainable side of business, for which the year 2025 is shaping up to be the key date for big-name quick-service brands. Wendy’s has its Squarely Sustainable program, which so far has included using more energy-efficient kitchen equipment and HVAC systems. The company also plans to reduce its overall energy usage by 20 percent by 2025. KFC will convert its packaging to renewable plastic sources, also by 2025. Meanwhile, McDonald’s has said it will source 100 percent of its packaging from renewable materials by, yep, 2025, and Dunkin’ has said it will do away with polystyrene cups by next year.

What will become clearer in future is which of these areas will help quick-service chains make the most positive impact on sustainability. From the perspective of a consumer, it’s easier to see that impact in compostable coffee cups and cutlery as replacements for polystyrene and plastic. Renewables are trickier in that they are a) harder for customers to “see” and b) have a long way to go in meeting long-term climate and sustainability goals. However, that doesn’t make them any less important, and as we inch towards 2025, we’ll see more of these initiatives from more chains, both in the U.S. and globally.

ALDI Will Shift to Sustainable Packaging by 2025

Grocery retailer ALDI announced this morning its plans to transition to more sustainable packaging for all its products. According to a press release, by 2025, the company plans to make 100 percent of its packaging, including plastic packaging, “reusable, recyclable or compostable.”

While no effort to reduce packaging waste in this day and age could be deemed easy, ALDI does certainly have an advantage over other grocery retailers because about 90 percent of its products are the in-house ALDI brand, which allows the company greater control over the packaging of items. ALDI also uses fewer plastic shopping bags because it doesn’t hand them out for free at checkout; shoppers can pay a small fee to get one but are encouraged to bring their own totes. According to the company, doing so has kept some 15 billion plastic bags out of landfills (or in the ocean).

ALDI’s announcement is the latest among several recent moves to curb the sale and use of plastic carrier bags in the U.S. New York this week became the second state to ban plastic bags, and here in NYC, where I never thought we’d see the death of the plastic bag, lawmakers are also considering charging a small fee for paper bags. A group representing Massachusetts supermarkets offered support on Tuesday for a bill that would outlaw single-use plastic bags in that state.

But plastic bags are only one part of grocery packaging and its subsequent waste. ALDI didn’t say exactly how it would make every one of its items’ packaging reusable or compostable, but a couple efforts around the country give us an indication. The Wally Shop, in Brooklyn, is a zero-waste grocery store where customers order online then pick up goods that are packaged in reusable containers. Precycle, also in Brooklyn, sells bulk items and household goods in reusable packaging.

The catch is that these zero waste grocery stores tend to be pricier than the average big-box retailer. Because it’s easy to say good-bye to packaging waste when you’re charging hipsters $6 for a bundle of asparagus and $30 for a reusable tote.

That’s why the ALDI news is especially intriguing. The retailer has historically served budget-conscious consumers. If the company, who claims 40 million customers in 1,800 stores currently, can make sustainable shopping easier for more people, the hope is that other big-box stores will follow suit in the near future.

Steeped’s Single-Serve Coffee Bags Deliver Instant High-End Brew Without the Environmental Waste

As someone who often makes a cup of instant coffee out of sheer busyness laziness, this news piqued my interest: Steeped, a Santa Cruz, CA-based startup, has launched a coffee brewing method that combines the speed of an instant brew with the quality of a high-end, single-serve cup o’ joe.

At least, what’s what Steeped claims. Yesterday, the company announced via press release the nationwide launch of its Steeped Coffee Method. The patented system looks like a tea bag, right down to the little tag on the end of the string. As with tea, you let the bag steep in hot water about five minutes to get the recommended strength and flavor. (It’s also not unlike the French press method in this regard.) After a few minutes, voila — you’ve got a high-quality cup of coffee.

The bags are filled with specialty coffee that’s then nitro-sealed, which enables a longer shelf life, provided you don’t open a bag up and leave it out. The product line includes five different brews: light, medium, and dark roast, as well as French roast and decaf.

“Premium coffee roasters have shied away from offering their specialty beans in single-serve packaging because it’s been nearly impossible to keep ground coffee fresh, which quickly ruins the taste,” company founder Josh Wilbur said in the press release. “With our Nitro Sealed bags, oxygen is replaced with nitrogen, so the coffee stays fresh as if it was ground moments ago.”

So it’s kind of like Keurig in a bag, right?

Well, yes and no. In terms of general purpose, Steeped Coffee and Keurig have a lot of similarities: They’re both single-serving coffees, take almost no time to make, and can last on your pantry shelf for a long, long time. But K-Cups are almost impossible to recycle, and so bad for the environment that even their creator regrets ever making them. There’s also the matter of K-Cups requiring a clunky countertop machine, which is also not recyclable when it breaks and needs replacing.

By contrast, all you need to make a cup of Steeped coffee is some hot water. In fact, Wilbur spent seven years trying to find a way to replicate K-Cups’ taste and convenience without wasting 10 billion single-serving pods in the process. Finding a way to avoid that level of waste was one of the key motivators behind starting the company. To that end, Steeped bags are made of plant-based renewable, compostable material. Because of the way they’re sealed, there are no glue, staples, or wax involved. All coffee is ethically sourced, as well.

Right now you can purchase Steeped via the company’s website as a one-time buy or as a subscription service. For the latter, you select the amount of coffee you want and the frequency with which you’d like it delivered. A 10-pack box will cost $14, and a 30-pack goes for $30.

As at-home coffee goes, that’s a tad steep (please kill me for that) compared to a $3 jar of Publix instant coffee. A 30-pack of K-Cups on Amazon, meanwhile, is just under $22 for a one-time purchase and $20 for a subscription; the price goes up when it includes pods from bigger-name brands like Starbucks and Dunkin’.

Here at The Spoon, we’ve yet to try Steeped’s coffee bags (we will let you know as soon as we do), so the jury is still out on whether Steeped can deliver both a comparable price point and good-tasting coffee. Keurig, Nespresso, and other pod coffees won’t win a competition in the taste department, but there are plenty of single-serve pour-over bags that might, so Steeped has some competition in that department.

The convenience factor will be the real key, though. Like it or not, most of us, yours truly included, will often sacrifice quality and the health of the planet to get our consumable goods faster. If Steeped has found a way to deliver fast coffee without the burden of 10 billion plastic pods, I’m on board.

StixFresh Can Double Your Avocado’s Shelf Life with a Sticker

Whenever I head to the grocery store I can’t leave without buying a bunch of bananas. But I find that a) they all get ripe at exactly the same time, and b) I can never eat them quickly enough.

Thankfully this leads to a lot of amazing banana bread, but product waste is a huge problem in this country (and in my house). In the U.S. between 30 and 40 percent of all our food ends up in the trash, with fruit and vegetables being some of the most likely to be wasted.

StixFresh is trying to curb our produce food waste problem with a sticker. Just pop one on a piece of fresh fruit and it’ll extend its shelf life by up to 14 days.

I was initially skeptical too. StixFresh’s CEO and co-founder Moody Soliman explained the technology to me over the phone. “Interestingly, the non-sticky side is the effective one,” he said. The sticker’s coating contains compounds that plants naturally make to protect themselves from predators. When said compounds vaporize, they travel far enough to “cloak” the fruit in a protective compound, inhibiting bacteria growth to prevent premature spoilage and over-ripening.

So far, StixFresh works with apples, pears, avocados, dragon fruits, kiwis, mangoes, and citrus, and Soliman said that they’re working to grow the list. They’re also trying to branch out into more vegetables and the holy grain of food waste: berries. Not only do they spoil quickly, it’s also unfeasible to put a sticker on every single blueberry. “We’re exploring alternative delivery methods,” explained Soliman.

StixFresh has a patent pending for the technology. The stickers are Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) by the FDA, which means they’re cleared to be used in food contact applications. They’re also made of paper, which means they’re better for the environment than all the plastic Chiquita banana stickers out there.

Then again, StixFresh’s end game is for their technology to end up on those branded stickers. “We’re envisioning that you’ll be able to apply our formulation to standard stickers,” said Soliman. “It will have Chiquita or Dole written on it, but it will have our [technology] in it as well.”

In addition to selling to distributors, StixFresh wants to make a consumer-facing option. Theoretically, people could pick up a pack of StixFresh stickers in the produce aisle and stick them on their avocados when they got home. “The simplicity of application allows it to be adapted at any point along the supply chain,” said Soliman.

This versatility is what sets StixFresh apart from Apeel, another produce-saving technology. Apeel creates an edible coating that farmers and distributors can apply to produce to extend shelf life. Which is super cool, but limiting; Apeel has also only been tested on avocados, asparagus, and some citrus fruits. The beauty of StixFresh is that it can be applied to a relatively wide variety of produce at any time, from harvest to home.

Of course, the downside is that you have to use stickers, which will eventually end up in a landfill. But that seems a small price to pay if it could significantly reduce the amount of food waste.

StixFresh recently launched an IndieGoGo campaign, which has exceeded its goal with 26 days left to go. The company is currently doing R&D out of a facility in Belgium and plans to send stickers to their early backers by August of this year. Soliman didn’t disclose pricing yet, saying it depended on how quickly they could scale production, but Early Bird backers on IndieGoGo can snag a pack of 50 stickers for $30.

As always when crowdfunding is involved, we have to have a healthy dose of skepticism about whether or not the product will actually make it to market. But StixFresh is a really good idea and (at least seemingly) pretty cheap to produce. Plus the company has a pending patent and some seed funding to back them up. If they do pull it off and I see their stickers in the grocery store someday, I’d definitely give them a try — even if that means less banana bread for me.

EU to Ban Single-Use Plastics by 2021

Yesterday, the European Parliament voted to ban single-use plastics — like straws, plates, coffee stirrers and lids, to-go containers, and cutlery — by 2021 (h/t The Guardian). The ban will go into effect in all EU member states and possibly the U.K., depending on what happens with Brexit.

The European Commission first proposed this ban last year, calling out the 10 single-use plastic items that make up 70 percent of all litter in EU waters and beaches. With this vote, the ban is official.

The legislation also outlines goals that by 2025 plastic bottles should be made of 25 percent recycled content, and that by 2029 90 percent of them should be recycled.

This is part of a global initiative to reduce plastic waste in oceans, which shakes out to about 8 million metric tons per year — all of which will take at least 450 years to biodegrade. Those are some pretty bleak statistics, but there’s some hope when you see countries around the world starting to instill plastic-reducing initiatives. In addition to this EU ban, Kenya has instated the world’s toughest ban on plastic bags, Montreal has axed single-use plastic bags, and Taiwan has plans to get rid of all single-use plastics by 2030.

Europe isn’t the only one trying to cut down on plastic consumption. Here in the U.S., we’ve also made some moves to eliminate single-use plastics, mostly straws. Starbucks announced it will eliminate plastic straws from all 28,000 of its locations by 2020, replacing them with a sort of adult sippy-cup lid. Starbuck’s home city of Seattle became the first major U.S. city to ban single-use plastics (straws, utensils, etc.) last year, followed by California and Washington, D.C. New York City might be next.

I’m not sure how quickly the U.S. will follow in Europe’s footsteps with a wide-reaching plastic ban of its own. We’re too obsessed with convenience and instant gratification. More feasibly, my colleague Jenn recently suggested that if food delivery companies got on board with plastic reduction, maybe replacing plastic cutlery with biodegradable options, that could be a massive help in our to-go-loving culture. Hopefully one or the other will happen before our oceans become even more clogged with plastics.