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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

food waste

Smart Food Waste Composters Are Here. Here’s a Look at Five of Them

Food waste sucks, but no matter how hard we try, most of us end up throwing out some food.

So if and when food does go to waste, the best thing to do is to make sure it doesn’t end up in a landfill. In some locations (like where I live), the city offers green bin programs with curbside yard and food waste pickup. But what option do those without city-run green bin programs have?

Composting! That’s right, no longer just for hardcore gardeners or your parents’ hippy friends, composting is becoming more popular as a way to avoid filling our landfills with carbon gas-emitting food waste, while also creating a rich food source for the home garden.

The problem? Composting takes time. In fact, it can take you up to a few months to fully compost food in a traditional composter (and that’s even after you buy worms!).

But now, there may be another answer…

Welcome To The Age of The Smart Food Waste Composter

The good news is we’re seeing a new wave of smart, automated compost systems that help the user turn food waste into compost. These new systems can compress composting time from months to days. They use internal compressors and grinders to break down the food and often have sensors to optimize the internal environment to foster microbe and nutrient growth.

Some come in economically sized countertop systems, while a couple of others look like a kitchen garbage bin or sit under your sink and connect to your plumbing system.

Most of these systems are either still in development or are just beginning to ship. And while I haven’t tested any of them yet and can’t vouch for their effectiveness, I do think -- if they work as promised -- these systems could potentially make composting a much more viable option for millions of households.

Here’s a look at five early entrants into the smart food waste composter category.

The Lomi

The first look at Lomi

The Lomi is a countertop system that compresses and grinds food waste into compostable material. The user drops food waste into the system and pushes a button, and the Lomi will turn the waste into compostable material in less than a day. The system has an Eco and Express mode; Eco takes about 20 hours and will produce a densely rich nutrient compost, while the Express mode takes 6 hours and produces a “neutral natural fertilizer”.

One of the cool features of the Lomi is it will compost compostable plastics. Throw in those compostable plastic containers or cutlery and the system will churn it into fertilizer. The Lomi uses a replaceable carbon filter system to reduce odor, and filters need to be replaced every 3-6 months.

The Lomi is from Pela, a company that made a name for itself with compostable material phone cases. When it launched on Indiegogo this year, the Lomi easily broke the record for the most-backed product in the food waste category with nearly 19 thousand backers and $6.9 million in raised funds.

Those interested can still buy the Lomi for $399 on Indiegogo and the company says it will ship in January 2022.

The Vitamix FoodCycler FC-50

Introducing the Vitamix® FoodCycler® FC-50!

While many of the new smart compost systems are from startups who launch their products on crowdfunding platforms, the new Vitamix FoodCycler FC-50 is from a name well known for its home blenders.

Here’s how Vitamix described the FoodCycler when they announced it last year: The FoodCycler FC-50 is lightweight, easy-to-use, odorless and compact. It comes with a small food-waste collecting bucket that can be moved around the kitchen – from countertop to sink – when preparing meals. The bucket is dishwasher-safe and comes with a lid, making it easy to keep the cast-iron bucket on your kitchen counter and the FoodCycler unit in a garage, laundry room or pantry..

The FC-50 can process a bucket of food in 4-8 hours. In addition to vegetable and fruit scraps, the unit will process meat, dairy products, and even bones from bones from fish or chicken.

The Vitamix FC-50 is available today for $379 on Amazon.

KALEA

KALEA automatic kitchen composter creates more out of your food scraps – start your home composting

Unlike the Lomi or the Vitamix FC-50, the KALEA home composter sits on the floor and looks like a small garbage can. The KALEA has two main components; Food is dumped into the upper chamber, where it is shredded, and its moisture is removed (there’s also a carbon filter to remove odors). Once shredded and dried, waste then drops into the second chamber where the machine creates the optimal temperature, oxygen levels and humidity conditions to turn the waste into compost. The processed compost is ready in 48 hours and dropped into a collection tray at the bottom of the machine.

The KALEA launched on Kickstarter, and while it didn’t raise the eye-popping amount of the Lomi, the creators were able to raise a respectable €485 thousand. The first backer units were supposed to go out in December of this year, and if the updates on Kickstarter are any indication, it seems like things are mostly on track. However, if you weren’t one of the early backers and wanted to order a KALEA, you’ll have to wait until July of next year, and it will set you back €729 ($850).

Tero

THE DEVICE | Introducing the Tero device

The Tero is a countertop home compost machine that turns food waste into compostable powder in 3-8 hours. Like some of the other countertop machines, the Tero compresses and grinds the food, and the company claims it reduces the total volume of the material by 90%.

The product comes in two versions, the Tero and the Tero Plus. The Tero Plus does the same amount of food as the base unit, but also comes with Wi-Fi connectivity and an app that lets you track how much food waste you have processed and order filters.

The Tero was funded via a successful Kickstarter campaign and units are shipping now to early backers. You can preorder a Tero on the company’s website.

Sepura

The Sepura is unique in that it is a system that replaces your under sink food disposal system and automatically separates food waste into a collection bin. The home owner or a plumber installs the Sepura system by connecting the separator unit to the sink. A separate collection bin connects to the processing unit, which takes about 8 seconds or so to grind the food and separate solids from liquids. When the collection bin is full, the user detaches it and puts the processed food into a compost pile or into a green bin.

The Week in Food Tech Funding: Olio Continues Food Waste’s Hot Streak

Food waste reduction is a hot investment space and one of the most active investor segments within the broader category in surplus food marketplaces.

And last week food waste kept on trucking as Olio, perhaps the most well-known of the share-your-food app startups, announced a $43 million Series B investment. Cofounder Tessa Clarke describes the funding as transformational via this Medium post and explains the three ways she sees funding being put to use:

  • Investment in Core Product: The company plans to hire more developers and build out new features in the core product, including “new features such as ‘Borrow’ and ‘Wanted’.”
  • Expansion of Food Waste Hero Programme: The company plans on expanding its corporate partner program that sources food from food service companies to pick up their excess food waste and redistribute into the community
  • International: the company is eyeing expansion into markets beyond Europe and North America, and it currently has 10 most promising in mind in ” Latin American, Asian & Northern European regions.”.

Over the past couple of years, we’ve watched as companies like Too Good to Go, Flashfood and Karma have raised funding to expand their platforms that enable restaurants and grocery stores to sell excess or soon-to-expire food to deal-shopping and lower-income consumers.

What sets Olio apart is that it enables home to home sharing for food. In this way, it’s like a more focused and less cluttered version of the Buy Nothing Facebook groups that have popped up in recent years. According to Clarke’s Medium post, Olio has helped save 25 million portions of food and 3 million other household items from being tossed in the waste bin.

Olio’s round continues a hot streak for food waste prevention investment over the past month after we saw Apeel raise an eye-popping quarter billion in funding in August. Both Apeel and Olio said they’d seen an acceleration in adoption over the past year, which echoes what we heard at our Food Waste Innovation Forum in June: The pandemic forced both companies and consumers to get serious about reducing food waste.

Here’s what else happened in food tech funding:

Plant-Based

Proeon – $2.4 Million: Pune-based plant-based ingredient company Proeon has raised a $2.4 million seed round. The company is similar to Motif Foodworkds in that its focus is building a range of different ingredient building blocks for companies building plant-based food products. The company plans to use its funding to build an R&D facility in the Netherlands, file more patents and hire more people.

CHKN Not Chicken – $4.5 Million: Portland Oregon based plant-based chicken startup CHKN Not Chicken has raised $4.5 million from Stray Dog Capital. The company will use the funding to expand the distribution of its flagship product into retail and grow its restaurant business. Unlike many of the alt-chicken products like Impossible’s new nuggets, which is made with soy, CHKN Not Chicken is made with pea protein.

Precision Fermentation

All G Foods – AU$16 million: Australian alt-protein startup All G Foods has raised AU$16 million in seed funding to fund growth for its plant-based meat business (Love BUDS Meat) and its precision fermentation-based alt-milk (CellMilk). The company is moving fast with veteran entrepreneur Jan Pacas at the helm. Pacas, who cofounded pet-sitting website Mad Paws, started the company only a year ago.

Cell-Based Meat

CellX – $4.3M: China-based cell-based meat startup CellX has raised $4.3 million in funding. The company makes a cell-based pork product. The company, which has 25 scientists working on developing its cell-based meat product platform in Shanghai. CellX is one of two startups this week that are semifinalists for the XPRIZE “Feed the Next Billion” competition, which is an indication that investors see participation in the XPRIZE contest as a validation of the company.

Wild Earth – $23 Million – Plant-based pet food startup Wild Earth announced a $23 million funding round from a group of investors that includes Mark Cuban and the star of Vampire Diaries, Paul Wesley. The company plans to use the funding to expand its pet food product line into products that use cell-based meat. The company plans to offer cell-based beef, chicken, pork, and seafood as part of the ingredient list for the new lineup, which it plans to start rolling out in 2022.

Mogale Meat Co. – Investment Amount Unknown: Mogale Meat Co, a South African-based cultured meat company, received an investment from alt-protein investor CULT Food Science Corp. Mogale plans to use the capital to invest in BioBank, which, according to the announcement, is “Mogale’s core intellectual property asset that currently contains over 500 cryo-preserved cell samples derived from free-roaming livestock and wild antelope.” Like CeeX, Mogale is an XPRIZE “Feed the Next Billion” semi-finalist.

Food Delivery

Cookunity – $47 million; Chef-powered meal delivery service CookUnity raises a $47 million Series B funding round. CookUnity, which provides chefs with kitchens and the digital platform to connect directly with consumers, is planning on using the money to expand the cities it’s doing business in. The company saw a topline revenue growth rate of over 5x over the past 12 months and has 55 chefs on its roster.

Food Robotics

Piestro – $2 Million+: Piestro, the automated artisanal pizza-making robot that is part of the Wavemaker Labs family of food robot investments, has raised over $2 million on crowdfunding startup platform StartEngine with less than three weeks to go. WaveMaker has continued to emphasize equity crowdfunding as a way to raise capital, starting with Miso Robotics, in which the company has raised $30 million so far via crowdfunding, and other portfolio properties such as the Bobacino robotic tea bar and Future Acres’ ag-bot.

Restaurant Tech

Heard – $10 Million: Hospitality and restaurant point of sale startup Heard has raised $10 million. The company, which counts Tiger Woods as one of its investors, makes point of sale software suite that includes front and back-of-house management tools for smaller restaurant operators.

That’s it for this week. If you have funding news you want in our weekly food tech news wrapup, let us know. And make sure you subscribe if you want to get The Week in Food Tech Funding in your inbox.

Food Waste Start-up Agricycle Global Raises $2.4M Seed Round

Agricycle Global, a food and agriculture waste start-up based in Wisconsin, announced this week that it has raised a two-part seed round totaling $2.4 million. The round was led by MaSa Partners and CSA Partners, with participation from Wisconsin Investment Partners, Brightstar Wisconsin, and several angel investors.

The start-up works across Sub-Saharan Africa with local farmers and communities to upcycle food ingredients and build a sustainable supply chain. This year, Agricycle launched two new brands that were distributed to over 1,000 U.S. stores. The start-up’s mission is to work with those who have typically been excluded from global food markets, including women, youth, and smallholder farmers.

Tropicoal Ignition, one of Agricycle’s brands, employs women to gather spent cassava root, coconut shells, and palm kernel shells that would normally go to waste. These ingredients are then processed and made into cooking charcoal.

In sub-Saharan Africa, about 25 to 50 percent of all produce is wasted post-harvest and before it even reaches the market. This is due to insufficient transportation, processing, drying, and storage. To combat this, Agricycle supplies solar dehydrators to small farmers and woman-led cooperatives that harvest jackfruit, mango, and pineapple. The fruit is then dried, packaged, and sold under the brand Jali Fruit Co. Each bag of dried fruit features a QR code that consumers can use to see where the ingredients were sourced from.

Whole Foods predicted that upcycled foods would be a trend this year, and the entire market is currently worth over $46.7 billion. This past April, the Upcycled Food Association launched a “Upcycled Certified” label shine the light on CPG companies focused on reducing food waste.

Agricycle will use the capital to launch its ingredient supplying business called Field Better Ingredients. The new brand will supply organic gluten-free flours made from 100 percent fruit to CPG manufacturers and bakeries.

Orbisk Raises €1.05M for its Food Waste Fighting AI for Restaurants

Food waste fighting startup Orbisk announced today that it has raised a €1.05 million (~$1.23M USD) Seed round of funding. The round was led by FoodSparks by PeakBridge, with participation from EIT Food, and existing investors DOEN Participaties, and Brabantse Ontwikkelings Maatschappij.

Based in the Netherlands, Orbisk makes a computer vision based system for foodservice operators to identify and cut down on food waste. Restaurants and cafeterias install Orbisk’s hardware at their primary waste bin, and kitchen staff hold food being tossed out underneath the Orbisk camera. Using artificial intelligence, Orbisk automatically identifies the food while a scale weighs how much of it is being thrown out.

As we covered recently, Orbisk’s computer vision and AI system is powered in part with the help of data company Sama. As Orbisk came to market, its cameras captured thousands of images of different types of food to train its AI. Sama worked to structure that data so the algorithms could learn what items like “noodles” or “broccoli” looked like.

The system works for both pre- and post-preparation. For instance, restaurants can monitor what type food and how much of it expires before it even gets cooked. Or for more buffet style restaurants, the system can monitor how much of a particular dish is leftover.

Food waste is a big problem for the world. According to the United Nations Environment Program, about one-third of food produced in the world for human consumption (roughly 1.3 billion tons) gets lost or wasted. That’s inexcusable when there are so many food insecure populations around the world.

Thankfully there are a number of companies around the world tackling the problem. Orbisk isn’t even the only startup to offer such a system for commercial kitchens. Over in the UK, Winnow makes a system similar to that from Orbisk.

The pitch from Orbisk and others like it is simple. By monitoring what food gets thrown out, restaurants and cafeterias not only reduce the amount of good food going into the garbage, they also save money by not spending it on food that customers don’t want.

Orbisk Co-Founder and CEO, Olaf van der Veen told me by video chat this week that his company’s system is currently being used by 50 restaurants right now, and reducing the food waste of its customers by an average of 40 – 50 percent. With its new funding, Orbisk plans to continue developing its product, scale internationally and be in a couple hundred establishments by the end of this year.

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.

JOKR and Too Good To Go Team Up to Help Eliminate Food Waste with Mystery Boxes

When it comes to fighting food waste, every little bit helps. So while the new partnership between speedy delivery grocery service JOKR and food rescue app Too Good To Go may only impact a small geographic area, it will perhaps inspire others to make a big impact.

JOKR, which launched in New York City this past May, operates a network of small, dark grocery stores that promise to deliver your food in just 15 minutes. The Too Good To Go app is an online marketplace that connects consumers with surplus food from restaurants, bakeries, cafes and grocery stores to prevent it from being thrown out.

Together, the two companies have teamed up to create “surprise JOKR bags.” These mystery bags feature food, groceries and pantry items that were about to go to waste at JOKR’s store hubs. According to press materials sent to The Spoon, the JOKR bags have a retail value of $15 but will sell for just $5. Surprise JOKR bags are available through the Too Good To Go app, and can be picked up (not delivered) at participating JOKR hubs. Since the partnership went live on July 14, JOKR and Too Good To Go have already saved more than 100 bags of food.

Though the partnership is limited right now, it’s another example of how speedy grocery delivery services are looking to differentiate themselves from one another. New York City in particular is getting packed with speedy grocery delivery as JOKR, Gorillas, Fridge No More, 1520 and soon Buyk all operate there.

If 15-minute grocery delivery becomes a commodity, these services will need to figure out a way to stand apart without just engaging in a race to the lowest prices (the overall economics of speedy delivery still need to be borne out). Some speedy grocers like Food Rocket and 1520 are adding ready-to-eat meals and ghost kitchens to their services in order to stand out. JOKR being able to tout food waste reduction with a little bit of fun (surprise!) and a cheap price could help hook its service with potential customers.

Right now the JOKR and Too Good Too Go surprise bags are only available in Williamsburg and Long Island City in New York, with plans to expand to other NYC locations soon.

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: Food Waste Sneakers, Cell-Ag Children’s Book, and Bon Appétit’s New App

If you had a busy week and missed out on news in the food tech space, we’ve got you covered. In this round-up, we gathered some news on Bon Appétit’s recently launched app, HelloFresh’s new online marketplace, MoEa’s sneakers made from food waste, and a children’s book on cellular agriculture.

Bon Appétit launches ordering app for people with dietary restrictions

The Bon Appétit Management Company launched an app this week called Curated, which was developed by chefs and registered dieticians. The app was created to make ordering food from restaurant menus easier for those who have dietary restrictions and needs. Through the ordering system, diners can select from 12 different diets, including plant-based, low-carb, gluten-free, as well as dishes free from major allergens. Once a dietary preference is selected, Curated shows dishes and ingredients that are available and can accommodate. Diners can then customize their meal with ingredients, sides, and sauces that fit into their preferences. The app can be used at Bon Appétit cafes and dining service locations, and it is available for free through the Café BonApp mobile app on iOS and Android phones.

HelloFresh now offers an online marketplace

Meal kit company HelloFresh has now added HelloFresh Market to its online platform. The new market offer will offer a wide range of add-ons for customers’ weekly orders. The new options include snacks, fresh produce, desserts, sides, spices, breakfast items, and pantry essentials. HelloFresh offers predominately dinner meal kits, but the introduction of the market will provide customers with options for breakfast, lunch, snacks, and desserts. The offerings on HelloFresh Market will be rolling out to customers in the U.S. over the upcoming months.

MoEa is using food waste to make vegan leather sneakers

Companies have developed technology to make leather from mushrooms and prickly pear fiber, and now a company called MoEa is using food waste to craft alternative leather. Specifically, the company sources leftover grape pulp from the Italian wine industry, cactus leaves, non-edible corn, pineapple leaves, and apples that would otherwise be wasted. Customers can pick out what type of leather they want for the shoe, and each type of leather is offered in two colors. The company currently has a Kickstarter campaign for the shoes, and backers who pledge €86 or about $108 USD will receive a pair of shoes in September 2021.

A new book on cell-ag for children

Called “Where Do Hot Dogs Come From?“, authors Alex Shirazi and Anita Broellochs explain how cellular agriculture works through a story of a family barbeque. Geared towards children aged 3 to 7, the purpose of the book is to teach children about the sustainability of cell-based meat and inspire the next generation of scientists working on alternative protein options. There is currently a Kickstarter campaign for the book, and backers who pledge $25 or more will receive a copy of the book in October 2021.

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.

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.