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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

food waste

Imperfect Foods Raises $72M to Expand Delivery of Ugly Produce and Pantry Goods

Imperfect Foods, the company that delivers surplus and “ugly” food directly to consumers, announced today that it had closed a $72 million Series C funding round. The round was led by Insight Partners with support from existing investors, including Norwest Venture Partners. This bumps the total amount raised by Imperfect up to $119.1 million.

You may have seen Imperfect Foods (formerly known as Imperfect Produce) boxes sitting on stoops around your neighborhood. Since 2015, the company has been delivering boxes of surplus and cosmetically imperfect produce — that is, fruits and vegetables that would normally go to waste — to consumers in curated boxes. The produce is discounted up to 30 percent compared to grocery store prices.

In an intriguing pivot, last year the company diversified into other grocery categories, like dairy, meat, and pantry items. Some of these were still “imperfect” products, like coffee beans that were too small or misshapen almonds, but others were not. Last year the company also launched a pilot program to pick up their delivery boxes for reuse.

With its new funds, Imperfect will continue to bring its grocery delivery to more areas across the country and add on to its fulfillment centers.

I received Imperfect boxes for a little over a year but discontinued them since, as a single person, I couldn’t use enough of my box to justify the cost. But ever since the pandemic has had me sheltering in place and dreading trips to the grocery store, I’ve missed my weekly boxes of produce and staples.

In fact, COVID-19 actually presents a valuable opportunity for Imperfect Foods. Surveys show that up to 60 percent of consumers are “fearful” of shopping inside grocery stores, while sales of online groceries are skyrocketing. Imperfect can provide the online grocery experience with a side of good conscience since you’re also cutting down on food waste.

Imperfect isn’t the only company to deliver ugly fruits and vegetables to consumers. Misfits Market also ships boxes of cosmetically flawed produce to consumers. Theirs is all organic, but the key difference is that you can’t choose what’s in your box, while Imperfect offers customization options.

In a time when consumers are relying on convenience and valuing their health perhaps more than ever, it’s a prime time for delivery services like Imperfect. Clearly investors feel the same way.

Waste Free! Loop Expands Reusable Packaging Program Throughout the U.S.

With the coronavirus pandemic forcing me to order more things than ever online — from groceries to toiletries to fancy dried beans — I’m accruing quite a lot of single-use packaging at my house. And I feel bad about it.

Maybe I’ll soon be able to assuage some of that guilt when Loop, the reusable packaging service, expands nationwide over the next few months (tip via Fast Company). Loop, an initiative from recycling company Terracycle, sells name-brand CPG products directly to consumers that are packaged in reusable containers made from metal and glass. After the consumers use them up, they put the empty containers back in the tote they came in and Loop picks them up to be sterilized and refilled.

Loop launched in the U.S. last May with a pilot program in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. According to an Instagram post from the company, Loop will roll out its reusable-container service across the contiguous U.S. sometime this summer. Globally, Loop is available in Paris and has plans to head to Canada, Germany, Japan, and the U.K. this year.

At launch Loop already had a roster of big-name partners like Kroger, Pepsi, Nestlé, and Walgreens. The platform has expanded to include roughly 200 products, including plant-based burgers and ice cream from Häagen-Dazs (my personal favorite).

I know what you’re thinking — during a pandemic when we’re all anxious about contamination, are we really going to be okay with receiving groceries packed in containers that someone else has already used? Especially since bring-your-own mugs and reusable totes in retailers are becoming a thing of the past?

Loop’s CEO certainly thinks so. He told Fast Company that Loop has seen evidence that “consumers are comfortable with reuse during COVID.” Since Loop has a reuse protocol in place — with stringent cleaning measures and pre-established health and safety checklists — he’s confident that they’ll be able to continue their closed-loop packaging practice without putting users at risk.

If users are comfortable with this, Loop’s extended platform could be a real help to cut down on our persistent packaging problem. Even if your delivery boxes are technically recyclable, COVID-19 is causing challenges for the waste management industry as a whole. Many packaging elements — like styrofoam and ice packs — aren’t recyclable anyway. Considering that the EPA reported that over 32 million tons of packaging and containers went into landfills in 2017 — almost a quarter of the total waste from the entire year — this is an issue we need to take seriously.

Today is Earth Day, so there’s no better time to take a moment and consider how we can help preserve our planet. Come this summer I know one small step that I’ll be taking cut down on the amount of packaging I’m tossing out. Bonus: I still get to enjoy my chocolate-fudge ice cream.

COVID-19 Summit: Coronavirus Could Actually Help us Reduce Food Waste (in Some Areas)

Unpopped popcorn kernels from movie theaters. Pre-wrapped cheese plates for airline passengers. These are just a few of the unexpected food resources that, due to social distancing recommendations, are going to waste during the coronavirus pandemic.

True, reducing food waste might not be one of the top-of-mind priorities right now for many of us, including airlines and movie theaters. But as Dana Gunders, Executive Director of ReFed, pointed out during yesterday’s COVID-19 Virtual Strategy Summit, as the coronavirus shakes up the food system from top to bottom, our food waste patterns are shifting too. “There’s enormous volatility in the system right now,” she said.

As we shutter restaurants, Gunders explained that we’ve cut off the supply chain to half of the food system. With that outlet closed, farms, processors, and distributors that typically work with foodservice are eyeing the grocery market and trying to establish new sales channels. Gunders walked us through how each sector of the food ecosystem is experiencing change — and what that means for food waste.

Farms
Farms, many of which rely on restaurant partners to sell their goods, are trying to pivot to find new retail channels. “But it’s not that instant,” Gunders said. She explained that instead, millions of pounds of green beans, tomatoes, and cabbage are getting tilled under because farmers can’t find outlets for them. So until farmers are able to forge new partnerships for e-commerce and D2C delivery, farm waste will increase. 

Processors and Manufacturers
With retail shopping on the rise, Gunders said that processors and manufacturers, such as CPG brands, are seeing up to triple the typical demand. But they’re also trying to navigate social distancing regulations and employee illnesses, which negatively affects their production capacity. This is bad news for upcyclers — companies that make goods out of traditional waste products, like spent grain from breweries — who are suddenly having difficulty sourcing their raw materials. 

Photo: ReFed

Distributors
When foodservice entities are forced to shut down and cancel their orders, distributors are the ones stuck with extra product. Distributors are seeking new retail channels to find an outlet for these leftover foods — but Gunders pointed out that the food is not often packaged for retail sales (e.g. the aforementioned popcorn kernels and cheese trays). 

Grocery and Retail
If you read The Spoon on the reg, or have gone shopping for toilet paper over the last month, you know that grocery stores and retailers have been experiencing a huge boom. At the same time, grocery stores are having difficulty forecasting how much to stock, since demand is so volatile right now. And as Gunders pointed out, volatility leads to challenges in purchasing, which could actually lead to more food waste on the grocery level. 

Restaurants and Foodservice
As we know, restaurants and foodservice establishments have been one of the hardest hit by the coronavirus epidemic. Forced closures over the past few weeks led to an initial spike in donations to food banks as restaurants tried to avoid throwing away food — the donations were too much for the system to handle in some cases, said Gunders. But as restaurants stay closed, these donations are now dropping off. There are also challenges around logistics; transporting food donations the last mile can be tricky when restaurants have laid off employees and volunteerism is down.

Consumer
One of Gunders’ biggest takeaways from the summit is that COVID-19 is forcing us all to be a lot more conscious about what food we’re buying and how we’re using it. When going to the grocery store means standing in line for an hour, you’re forced to be more strategic about how to use up food you already have at home — and that means less food waste. At the same time, Gunders pointed out that hoarding behavior at the grocery store can lead to more food waste when people discover they didn’t actually need that 6-pack of brie cheese wheels.

As more people cook at home, we’re also gaining kitchen skills. These could serve us going forward; consumers will learn how to freeze, preserve, and make use of their food, instead of just throwing it away. Gunders also said that people might begin to eat food that’s past its “sell by” date, which is notorious for being confusing and overly conservative. It’s also an opportunity for the adoption of smart kitchen tech which helps use up food, like IoT-connected containers or meal planning resources.

The majority of food waste right now happens within the home. If we start being more conscious about our food, and how we consume and preserve it, the COVID-19 outbreak could actually be a significant opportunity to cut food waste. But only if we all do our part.

You can watch the full session with Dana Gunders below or check it out on Crowdcast.

The Spoon COVID-19 Summit: Dana Gunders on COVID-19's Impact on Food Waste.

Food Tech News: Upcycled Salmon Skin Snacks, Instacart Downplays Ratings

When the world is shifting what seems like second-by-second, it can be hard to focus on anything besides COVID19. Here at the Spoon we’re working extra hard to bring you useful pieces on how the coronavirus is affecting the entire meal journey, and give you resources for how to thrive in a difficult time.

But the food tech world is still spinning, and there is still news to report! Here are a few stories that caught our eye this week, including new upcycled salmon skin chips, boozy hand sanitizer, plant-based pork instant noodles and Instacart updates. Be well and stay safe.

HARMLESS HARVEST founders launch upcycled salmon skin snack
The founders of HARMLESS HARVEST, an ethically-sourced coconut water company, just launched a new product focused on sustainable salmon. Called GOODFISH, it’s a crispy salmon skin snack which has the texture of a chicharron. The snacks are made of traceable wild Alaska sockeye salmon skins which typically go to waste and are meant to be a healthier alternative to chips. GOODFISH will retail for the SRP of $2.99 SRP for a 0.5oz bag and are currently available online.

Liquor companies to make hand sanitizer for donation
If you’ve gone grocery shopping lately you know that hand sanitizer is a rare find at the moment. To keep up with demand, liquor brand Pernod Ricard USA, which makes Absolut Vodka, Kahlua, and other brands, has announced that it will produce hand sanitizer at all of its manufacturing sites and donate them to fight the coronavirus outbreak (via The Hill). Brewers and distillers across Europe are also offering their help to make hand sanitizer using their alcohol.

Instacart shopper ratings won’t affect access to grocery service
More and more folks are relying on online grocery delivery and pickup right now, and that’s causing a frenzy of stressed out customers. Instacart announced this week that their shopper ratings — that is, the rating that Instacart customers give to people who do their shopping for them — will not affect their access to delivery jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic (h/t Techcrunch). Instacart will also let shoppers pay with Google Pay or Apple Pay, so they don’t have to touch screens while shopping.

Green Monday debuts OmniPork Instant Meal Cup in Taiwan
This week Green Monday, the plant-based meat company based out of Hong Kong, announced that it would be selling its new OmniPork Instant Meal Cup across Taiwan. Made with OmniPork’s signature plant-based pork, the instant noodle cups will be cobranded with the FamilyMart convenience store chain and sold at 3,600 stores.

Produce Mate Launches Kickstarter for Silicone Mat That Extends Produce Life

After learning that the majority of food waste happens in the home, I’ve been trying to take conscious steps to cut down on the amount of food I throw away — buying only what I need, cooking with scraps, etc. By far the biggest struggle is produce — no matter how carefully I plan to use up all my bananas, tomatoes, and avocados, I usually end up with at least a few rotting and ending up in the compost. Sorry, I am a flawed human. 

A new startup out of Portland, Oregon is trying to give me and other aspirational folks a longer lead time to use up their produce before it goes bad. Called Produce Mate, the company makes antimicrobial kitchen mats that contain minerals that fight the bacteria responsible for spoilage of fruits and vegetables. Place the mat — which is the same size as a sheet of paper — on the counter or in your fridge, store your produce on top, and your fruits and veggies will stay fresh for longer.

How much longer? According to Produce Mate’s founder Dagan Kay, who I spoke to on the phone earlier this week, they don’t have any exact numbers yet. The company is currently in the midst of gathering data on how the mat will affect the lifetime of various fruits and vegetables. “It’s a tough thing to predict (or advertise) because every fruit ‘n veggie is different and results will always vary,” he told me. Kay did, however, cited one study they’d done in which fruits and vegetables stored on the Produce Mate mat lasted 40 percent longer than those stored on a counter alone.

Photo: Produce Mate

Produce Mate recently launched on Kickstarter with a goal of $15,000. Backers can nab a single mat for $25 with an estimated ship date of July 2020. The mats come with suggested “cut-to-fit” lines in case it doesn’t slot easily into your fridge. Kay told me if successful, he plans to sell the mats for $30 MSRP both online and through retail partners by the end of this year. 

Produce Mate is bootstrapped right now, and Kay said that the company needs the Kickstarter funds before it can order its first large-scale run of the mats. As always, crowdfunded hardware companies come with a strict “buyer beware” caveat — especially at a time when COVID-19 is putting up extra obstacles for manufacturing. 

Other companies are also fighting home food waste by tackling produce lifespan. The most similar to Produce Mate is StixFresh, which makes a small sticker that exudes plant compounds that keep bacteria from forming on fresh fruit and vegetables. Further upstream in the supply chain, Hazel Technologies and Apeel are extending produce life with packaging inserts and edible coating, respectively.

Kay is aware of these competitors and said that Produce Mat differentiates itself in two major ways. Firstly, it doesn’t require any behavior change on the part of the consumer — no stickers to add to your bananas, no nothing. The mats are also long-lasting — they stay effective for over two years — which means less stuff ends up in the trash. “I didn’t want to save fruit and vegetables from the landfill just to add something else to it,” he told me.

Kay explained that for many consumers it’s easy to get overwhelmed when facing as daunting a challenge as food waste. But the Produce Mate, he told me, could catalyze real change because “it’s tangible and simple proof that cumulative action actually makes a difference.” Time will tell if it’ll help people like me do better at using up those bananas before they go bad.

Sweetgreen Rolls Out Truly Compostable Bowls — Will Other Chains Follow Suit?

If you’ve grabbed lunch at a Sweetgreen before, you likely felt pretty virtuous as you tossed your takeout container, knowing that it’s “100 percent compostable.”

But the truth about those takeaway bowls is a lot less pleasant. According to The Counter (formerly The New Food Economy), all molded fiber bowls contain PFAS; a nasty class of chemicals that do not naturally biodegrade. That means that the compostable food containers you’ve been throwing out are not, in fact, compostable. In fact, they contain hazardous, unhealthy components that never break down.

However, Sweetgreen just took a big step to get rid of PFAS and make their to-go containers truly compostable. The fast-casual chain partnered with Footprint, a company fighting single-use plastic packaging, to develop a new line of biodegradable bowls that are completely devoid of PFAS (h/t FastCompany). Sweetgreen launched the bowls first in San Francisco earlier this year, since new legislation requires that as of January 1, 2020, all single-use food service ware (containers, cups, etc) in SF must be PFAS-free.

The containers are made of fibers from bagasse, an agricultural waste product, which is blended, heated, and covered with a natural coating so it won’t leak. The lids for Sweetgreen’s to-go containers are currently plastic, but the company plans to start selling lids made of the same compostable material soon. Sweetgreen has plans to roll out the compostable bowls at all of its stores nationwide in 2020.

Sweetgreen is one of several restaurant chains with high numbers of to-go orders that is increasing its sustainability efforts. Its competitor, Just Salad, recently announced plans to send zero waste to landfills by 2022. Coffee chain Blue Bottle aims to divert at least 90 percent of its waste from landfills by the end of this year.

On the fast food side, Taco Bell aims to implement PFAS-free sustainable consumer-facing packaging by 2025. Starbucks will switch to reusable packaging by 2030 in a bid to cut its landfill waste by half. And McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, Subway, and Burger King have all made their own pledges to reduce single-use and plastic.

In a time when worry over COVID-19 could be making restaurants more hesitant to accept consumer’s reusable containers — Starbucks, for example, has stopped letting customers use their own drinking vessels — better to-go packaging is more needed than ever before. But implementing truly recyclable or compostable packaging is much easier said than done, even as more cities mandate PFAS-free to-go containers.

With its new biodegradable bowls, Sweetgreen shows that it’s taking sustainability seriously. The move should put some pressure on fast-casual competitors like Chipotle, Panera, Chopt, and more, to follow suit and step up their to-go container game.

Just Salad Outlines Its Goals to Send Zero Waste to Landfills by 2022

Fast-casual chain Just Salad aims to send zero waste to landfills by 2022, according to the company’s first-ever sustainability report, which was released this week. 

The report both recaps some of Just Salad’s efforts around sustainability and outlines the chain’s goals for 2020, many of which are about getting rid of single-use plastics and curbing and/or diverting food waste in its operations. These environmental commitments come under Just Salad’s Green Standard Initiative, which the chain launched last year and is already executing on in its 47 locations, which span five U.S. states as well as Dubai. 

Central to the company’s aim to get rid of single-use plastics is its popular reusable salad bowl, which customers can purchase for $1 (and get a free topping for their salad when they use it). According to the report, Just Salad diverted 75,000 pounds of single-use plastic from landfills in 2019 and plans to up that number to 100,000 pounds by 2022. 

The company says it will also implement a bring-your-own-cup program in 2020 that offers customers a $0.10 discount on beverages when they bring their own containers. As well, Just Salad says it is “evaluating all in-store supplies” and testing more sustainable options, including compostable to-go cutlery and cardboard containers for wraps in place of plastic ones.

Curbing food waste is the other big focus of the report. Last year, the company started a composting program at certain locations that separates food waste from other waste in the back of house. The company will continue that practice, which it says can divert an estimated 22,000 pounds of organic waste from landfills across its NYC stores alone. The program is currently active at Just Salad stores in NYC, Philadelphia, and Chicago. The company will include this food waste separation process in the front of house for certain locations in 2020. 

Many restaurant chains are now outlining major sustainability initiatives to address massive issues in the food industry around waste, whether it’s leftover food or single-use packaging that does not biodegrade. Major chains like McDonald’s and Starbucks have detailed programs in place to introduce reusable packaging, cut carbon emissions through alternative sources of energy, and curb food waste by diverting it from landfills (in some cases even using to to make automobiles).

But it’s not just the multi-national chains doing this work. Blue Bottle Coffee, for example, recently outlined an ambitious plant to make its stores completely zero waste by 2020. Company CEO Bryan Meehan was the first person to point out the initiative was an experiment that “may not work, that may cost us money,” among other things.

He has a point, and it’s one that more companies are starting to acknowledge as the dialogue around sustainable restaurant operations becomes more central, if at the same time more expensive. Just Salad’s founder and CEO Nick Kenner echoed a similar sentiment in the company’s sustainability report when he wrote that achieving sustainability is a challenge that requires logistics, money, and a change in consumer attitudes. “Affordability and sustainability are not at odds with each other,” he said. “While the sustainable path can cost more in the short run, it’s an engine for long-term value creation.” 

This Alternative Sweetener Is Made From Upcycled Apples and Pears

Overconsumption of sugar is responsible for illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes and some cancers, a problem that’s hard to avoid because American food is full of the stuff. Many people and companies lean on alternatives to avoid sugar, but while research has proven that consumption of aspartame, sucralose and others is safe, many people have concerns about them. Stevia is another sugar alternative that’s made from leaves, but its odd aftertaste disqualifies it for use in many products.

This conundrum in the multi-billion-dollar sweetener industry presents an opportunity for Fooditive, which hopes to provide another option that is not only natural, but also reduces food waste. The Netherlands-based startup’s sweetener is made through a fermentation process that extracts fructose from apples and pears sourced from Dutch farmers that have brown spots or off colors and can’t be sold in stores, Fast Company reports. The company, founded by food scientist Moayad Abushokhedim, has also developed carrot waste into a preserving agent for soups, sauces and bakery items, as well as thickening agents made from banana skins and emulsifiers from potato extracts.

The company is following a B2B model and will distribute the sweetener to food and beverage companies across the Netherlands. There’s no word on when it will go on sale to the general public, although the company’s website says online ordering will be coming soon. Fooditive said it has plans to expand to Sweden, the U.K. and Abushokhedim’s native Jordan. 

While Fooditive’s sweetener is novel, using food and food scraps that would otherwise be discarded is part of a growing trend of so-called upcycled foods. Other companies with this model include Barnana, which turns misshapen and over ripened bananas into snacks, ReGrained, a maker of bars made from spent grain leftover from brewing beer, and Sir Kensington, a vegan mayo maker that uses chickpea liquid.

Aside from introducing alternatives, companies are also introducing ways to “improve” sugar so we don’t need to consume too much of it. There’s DouxMatok, which aims to make the sugar we already consume hit our tongues more efficiently, and Nutrition Innovation, a technology company using near-infrared scanning to better refine sugar.

Startups are approaching the issue of humanity’s dangerous sugar addiction from multiple angles, so thankfully there are plenty of sweet solutions emerging.

New Smart Fridges Should Help Us Organize Our Food Better

If you’re like, well, practically everyone, the inside of your fridge is probably a dystopian nightmare: half-used bottles of condiments jammed into the doors, leftover boxes stacked precariously atop one another, limp broccoli tucked away in vegetable bins.

Earlier this month, The Wirecutter ran a fun piece on how to Marie Kondo your fridge. It’s packed with great advice on how to get rid of stuff and organize your food in a way that makes sense.

As I read through The Wirecutter’s tips, I started thinking about the new wave of smart fridges with cameras built into them. Both LG and Samsung showed off these camera-equipped fridges this month at CES, touting the image recognition’s ability to help you with grocery shopping, meal planning and recipe discovery.

Seems like these all-seeing, AI-powered fridges could also help out with food organization. At first, this may seem like a silly add-on. I mean, anyone can place a carton of milk in the fridge. But as The Wirecutter points out, not all zones inside a fridge are created equal. Some parts are colder than others (the back, bottom self), some slots are better suited for condiments (door shelf), and there are even food safety considerations (don’t place raw chicken on the top shelf).

So a smart fridge could suggest where to place an item inside the fridge based on what that item is. Or it could suggest arrangements based on expiration date so you’ll know which food is going bad first. And if you are using the embedded meal planning function, it could suggest grouping items together that will all be used in a specific recipe.

Again, I don’t think this needs to be a priority for appliance manufacturers. But it is a small step that could bolster the new features like meal planning they want to be adopted, and in a small way, could perhaps save us from our own dystopian levels of food waste.

CES 2020: AntX and FlowWaste Use Data to Cut Cafeteria Food Waste

I don’t know about you, but whenever I’m in a cafeteria dining situation — school, offices, Whole Foods hot bar — I always load up my plate high and… never finish it all. Maybe technology from AntX and FlowWaste, both of which exhibited at CES 2020’s Eureka Park this week, will someday help all of us cut down on food waste from cafeterias.

AntX has a smart scale that helps track exactly what you’re eating. The scale, which can be installed under food offerings at places like cafeterias, hot bars, and fast-casual restaurants, give instant feedback when you serve yourself.  

Say you’re eating at a school cafeteria and want some mac & cheese. With AntX, you’d grab a plastic AntX tracking card at the door then fill up your plate. As you add a scoop of mac & cheese, the scale will tell you exactly how much weight you’re getting, how many calories are in the serving, and how much it’ll cost you. 

After you’ve served yourself you swipe the card on the scale, which will keep track of how much you’ve got. It’s then swiped at the register where you not only get the total cost of your meal, but can also see the nutritional breakdown of everything you’ve served yourself. All of that data is saved in the AntX app, so you can look back and see nutritional data about what you’ve eaten.

Sure, it’s nice to see exactly how much of any food you’re taking so that you don’t get sticker shock when you weigh and pay for your food. AntX’s CEO Wicky Zhang, who gave me a demo of the tech on the show floor (see video below), pointed out that it’s also a way to curb overeating and food waste; when people are confronted with the exact calorie breakdown of their food, they tend to eat less. 

CES 2020: AntX's Smart Scale Collects Data for Cafeterias

But the real selling point here is the data. For consumers, especially those trying to stick to diets, it’s an easy way to track what they’ve eaten. For the foodservice providers, it’s even more valuable. They can look through consumer data to better optimize their food offerings. Say, for example, chicken teriyaki sells really well when displayed next to rice, but not well when it’s next to pasta. Or that people tend to eat less meat on Mondays. The restaurant can use that information to better inform menu decisions, as well as the layout of their foods.

AntX’s operates off of a subscription model, charging partners a monthly fee (which Zhang did not disclose) to use their system. The hardware — which can be a single scale or a full-on cafeteria buffet setup — will be either a low up-front cost or free. According to Zhang, the company is already working with 40 college and office cafeterias in China. It’s making its U.S. debut in two weeks in the cafeteria of Silicon Valley company Deepmap.

AntX comes into play at the beginning of your cafeteria journey, but FlowWaste appears at the end. The startup makes a camera that attaches to the tray rack of a dish station in cafeterias. As you stack your finished plate, the camera takes a photo of how much food is left behind and sends that data to the cafeteria operators, so they can tweak their portion sizes, menu offerings, dish pairings, and more. 

FlowWaste’s camera detects leftover food. [Photo: Catherine Lamb]

According to a FlowWaste rep, the first four weeks the camera trains to recognize all of the offerings in a cafeteria. After that, its image recognition software is sophisticated enough to “see” different food items and instantly recognize them. 

We’ll soon see just how effective this technology can be. FlowWaste will begin trialing in early Spring in the Indiana area with university and corporate cafeterias. The company, which is currently part of an incubator system at Notre Dame, operates on a subscription service which will cost around $1,000 per month. 

As we all know, food waste is a pressing issue up and down the food chain. Companies like Winnow and Leanpath are helping curb waste in restaurants’ back of house by optimizing ingredient ordering, but thus far there hasn’t been a lot of tech-focused on reducing consumer food waste in the front-of-house.

Hopefully that’s starting to change. Who knows, maybe next year the CES cafeterias will have AntX and FlowWaste up and running — and we’ll see a lot less food go in the trash. 

Food Tech News: Longer-Lasting Strawberries and Plant-Based Meatballs

The holiday limbo is over and we at The Spoon are preparing to jet off to CES to report on cool kitchen and food tech. If you’re there, be sure to say hi — and get your ticket to attend Food Tech Live, if you haven’t already!

Before we head to the airport it’s time to share a few food news stories from around the web. Enjoy, and be sure to follow along on social media to keep up to date on all the CES food tech news!

USDA unveils longer-lasting strawberry
You know how when you pick up a pint of strawberries at the store they seem to start molding before you even get home? That’s not the case with a new strawberry variety developed by the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service. According to Food Dive, the new fruit, called “Keepsake,” lasts longer than the average berry while kept in cold storage (AKA your fridge). The new berry is being distributed in Redding, California but could adapt to climates in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern U.S.

Photo: Subway

Good news for sub sandwich-loving flexitarians across the pond. This week Subway announced it would add the Meatless Meatball Marinara sanwich to all of its locations in the U.K. and Ireland (h/t VegNews). The chain began testing the meatless sandwich in that region in October, just a month after Subway in the U.S. piloted a meatless meatball sub of its own made with Beyond Meat.

Swiss coffee trading company Algrano raises $4.04 million
This week Algrano, a Swiss company which trades green coffee, raised 4 million Swiss Francs (~$4.04 million USD), according to Daily Coffee News. Algrano has a digital platform connecting coffee producers and roasters to create a traceable marketplace for unroasted coffee beans. The company raised an additional $2 million roughly 18 months ago.

2020 Might Just Be the Year of the Zero-Waste Coffeeshop

Earlier this week, a company called T’HO Coffee in Los Angeles wrapped a successful Kickstarter campaign, raising more than $20,000 to open a coffee shop in the City of Angels that will be completely zero waste. That means reusable cups and straws, cheesecloth in place of disposable brewing filters, and nary a plastic utensil to be found onsite.

The success of T’HO’s Kickstarter campaign suggests consumers are finally ready to take the idea of zero-waste coffeeshops seriously. Let’s hope so. At a time when only about 9 percent of all plastic generated is actually gets recycled, it seems we’re getting fed up with disposable cups and lids winding up in landfills alongside paper sleeves, single-use straws, and those ridiculous plastic lid stoppers.

Going fully zero waste is, to make an understatement, no small feat for any business (or consumer, for that matter). There are companies trying the concept out. Blue Bottle Coffee snagged a bunch of headlines in late 2019 when it announced it would make all locations zero waste in 2020. The company also noted that the initiative “may not work, that [it] may cost us money, and that may make your life a little more complicated.” 

We’ll have to wait and see how Blue Bottle’s efforts pan out over the next several months, and see if the reality of having a truly zero-waste operation is too expensive for most coffeeshops. But between the extremes of no waste and plastic lid stoppers lies a huge number of opportunities for cafes to cut down on waste, and many are already doing just that. 

Reusable Cups
Coffeeshops hand out roughly 250 billion paper cups every year. Most of those go straight to the landfill. 

While larger companies like McDonald’s, Starbucks, and others have put some of their dollars behind initiatives to develop a truly recyclable, compostable cup, many smaller chains and independent businesses are getting rid of the to-go cup altogether. At least, they’re headed that way, and encouraging customers to do the same.

For example, when T’HO’s shop opens, it will offer customers a slight upcharge (the exact amount isn’t yet specified) to get their drinks in a compostable to-go cup. At the same time, those who bring their own cup will receive a small discount. 

Once it goes zero-waste, Blue Bottle’s customers will have one option for getting coffee to go: laying down a “modest deposit” for a reusable to-go cup they can later return to the cafe for cleaning.

Reusable Cup Programs
Ditching the to-go cup doesn’t mean these companies will change consumer expectations around delivery and convenience overnight, though. In fact, with off-premises orders expected to drive the bulk of restaurant sales, including coffeeshops, over the next 10 years, more must be done to meet this demand without further trashing the planet.

To that end, a handful of companies are trialing programs that combine coffee delivery and reusable cups. In the UK, CupClub provides participating coffee retailers with plant-based plastic mugs that contain RFID tags that get registered to an individual customer’s CupClub account when they purchase a coffee. Users can return the cup to a CupClub location when finished with their drink. It’s basically Citi-Bike for reusable coffee cups, and the concept is catching on. Vessel Works has a similar program in Colorado and Berkeley, California. And a NYC-based company called GOffee has a coffee delivery program for corporate offices that delivers drinks in resuable cups then collects the cups for cleaning the next day. 

Straws, Sleeves, Sugar Packets and More
Cups are a huge part of coffeeshop waste, but they’re not the only culprit. As Seven Corners, a coffeeshop in Portland, Oregon, points out in the importance of “refusing to offer things that are inherently wasteful.” The company, part of the Nossa Familia Coffee company, doesn’t offer things like individual sugar packets, plastic containers for condiments (e.g., cream cheese), and keeps things like straws and sleeves behind the counter and only available on request.

Bulk Coffee
Places like Seven Corners and Blue Bottle have also historically sold coffee by the bag for consumers to take home. Yes, most of these paper bags can be recycled. But since the point of zero-waste initiatives is about changing consumer mindset around grabbing inherently wasteful products in the first place, some of these companies have ditched the paper bag in favor of reusable containers. Seven Corners customers only offers bulk coffee to customers who bring their own containers. Ditto for Blue Bottle once it switches its shops over to zero waste. When T’HO opens, customers will be able to grab a glass jar in the store, fill it with coffee, and pay based on weight.

Reusable packaging is really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to making the coffeeshop a zero-waste initiative. It’s also low-hanging fruit, meaning it’s somewhat easier and cheaper for businesses to adopt as part of their overall operations. There are other ways the coffeeshop can become more eco-friendly, from proper disposal of espresso grounds to working with more responsible suppliers. Some of these areas are more challenging than others in terms of making them a part of a shop’s overall business strategy. As we move forward into 2020, efforts by early movers like Blue Bottle, T’HO, and others will give us a better idea of how to make initiatives like these more widespread.