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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Renewal Mill

The Wonderful Company Wants New Innovations for Its 50,000 Tons of Pomegranate Husks

The Wonderful Company, best known for its pomegranate juices, is ready to infuse some cash into creative reuses of its pomegranate biomass.  

Today, the company launched its Wonderful Innovation Challenge. The competition will offer “up to $1 million” in funding and development resources to those with “pilot ready solutions for the 50,000 tons of pomegranate husks generated each year by juicing POM Wonderful pomegranates,” according to a press release sent to The Spoon. Food waste nonprofit ReFed will serve as a strategic advisor and managing partner for the competition. 

The pomegranate husk, also known as pomace, consists of the fruit’s pulpy remains after it has been crushed and its juice extracted. On the competition’s website, The Wonderful Company says the pomace is usually sold as dairy feed but “recent shifts in the market have prompted the exploration of new, alternative outlets.”

To find those alternative outlets, Wonderful’s new competition is looking for companies with ideas that are ready to pilot and backed by “a data-driven business model.” The tools, technologies, and processes companies can use is fairly open-ended: the competition only notes that concepts should demonstrate potential for positive environmental or social impact. 

Chosen winners get funding from a $1 million reward pool, as well as assistance in developing their concepts. Applicants should request the amount they will need to develop their pilots when they submit their ideas.

Wonderful is the latest company to join the movement for upcycling the inedible parts of food items, and in the last several months, we’ve seen many creative ideas come out of this movement. It joins companies like Renewal Mill, who is currently making cookies from upcycled okara flour and Harmless Harvest, a company turning leftover salmon skin into snacks. Major corporations are also getting involved. For example, researchers at the University of Toronto Scarborough turning McDonald’s deep-fryer oil into 3D-printing resin.

Innovations in upcycling increase as the conversation around the world’s food waste problem gets louder. As we discussed in a recent Spoon Plus report, solutions for fighting food waste now come in all different shapes and sizes. While Wonderful’s new competition specifically focuses on food scraps that can’t be eaten, it joins other companies and organizations in the urgent fight to keep food out of landfills.

Tech has a potentially big role to play in the process of upcycling inedible food scraps, and we’ll doubtless see some of it surface in Wonderful’s competition. 

The application process is open now and runs to Dec. 7, 2020.

Renewal Mill Launches Equity Crowdfunding Campaign to Raise $1M

Renewal Mill, a startup that makes baking products out of upcycled ingredients, launched an equity crowdfunding campaign today in an effort to raise $1 million.

Founded in 2016, Renewal Mill takes manufacturing byproducts that typically go to waste and turns them into upcycled ingredients that can be used for baking. For instance it turns the soybean pulp leftover from a company making tofu into gluten-free, high-fiber okara flour.

Renewal Mill has previously raised $1.7 million in Seed funding, and has been a participant in the Techstars Farm to Fork accelerator as well as Barilla’s Good Food Makers program and the Systems 6 accelerator. Renewal Mill products have been used by companies like Pulp Pantry, Humphry Slocombe and Tia Lupita Foods, and the company sells its own product line directly through its website and retailers like Good Eggs and Whole Foods.

Through this crowdfunding effort, Renewal Mill is looking to commercialize its second ingredient product, “oat oakara,” which is made from the oat pulp leftover when oatmilk is made. The company also wants to expand its upcycled baking mixes.

Today’s news puts Renewal Mill at the center of a couple trends happening in food tech. First, the company is one of a handful of companies upcycling everything from salmon skins to banana peels to imperfect apples and pears into new products. Not only does this upcycling result in new and unique foods, it also helps eliminate food waste.

But Renewal Mill is also joining in the trend of food tech startups turning to equity crowdfunding to raise fresh capital. Kiwibot, Piestro, and Winc have all launched equity crowdfunding campaigns this year. Equity crowdfunding is a way for startups to grow without the pressure to scale that comes with traditional VC backing. But it also comes without the valuable institutional knowledge and relationships that a traditional VC can bring.

In an email sent to The Spoon, Renewal Mill Co-Founder and COO Caroline Cotto said that the company had the option of getting additional money as part of its initial Seed round, but decided against it to retain ownership of the company. Cotto said that they went the equity crowdfunding route to diversify the cap table and use it as a marketing opportunity as they work to expand their retail presence nationally.

The Spoon does not provide any investment advice and, as with any investing, there is always risk. Those interested in investing in Renewal Mill can do so for as little as $50 at Republic.co through November 30, 2020.

Renewal Mill Raises $2.5M for More Alterna-Flour Upcycling

HG Ventures today announced a $2.5 million seed round investment in food upcycling company, Renewal Mill.

My colleague, Catherine Lamb spotted Renewal Mill at the recent Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco, and described their business in a post, writing:

The Oakland-based company works with Hodo Foods, an organic tofu producer, to source their soybean pulp, which they dry and blitz to make a gluten-free, high-fiber flour. Renewal Mill sells the flour wholesale to CPG companies and direct to consumer through Imperfect Produce (in some regions).

A press release from HG Ventures says Renewal Mill will use the funding to scale production and expand into new markets. Prior to the HG investment, Renewal Mill was part of the TechStars Farm to Fork Accelerator and secured a joint R&D project with Cargill.

Upcycling is on the upswing, and a number of companies are putting leftover edible byproducts that would be destined for animal feed or landfill to good (tasting) use. Also at the Fancy Food show was Soulmuch, which upcycles juice pulp, coffee grounds and leftover rice and quinoa into cookies. Pulp Pantry turns leftover pulp from juicing companies into plant-based granola and veggie thins. And Render turns leftover whey and pickle juice brine into upcycled beverages.

But it’s not just smaller startups seeing potential gold in what used to be considered garbage. BIG CHICKEN co. Tyson Foods crowdfunded the launch of Yappah! “Protein Crisps” made from chicken breast trim and spent grain from beer brewing.

Renewal Mill is also on the forefront of another new trend, alterna-flours. Gold Medal is getting some competition for your baking dollars as new sources of flour including defatted sunflower seeds and crickets (yes, the insect) come to market.

Considering that sales of tofu rose 11 percent last year to hit $108 million, Renewal will no doubt have plenty of leftover grist for their Mill.