Hard-To-Track News For Business Professionals

New FreshCloud Platform Monitors Produce Quality Through The Supply Chain

Food preservation company AgroFresh Solutions announced the launch of its FreshCloud platform, a data- and insights-driven solution for monitoring produce quality through the supply chain. The company also announced the acquisition of Verigo, an “Internet of Things” (IoT) company offering end-to-end visibility and management of cold-chain logistics. FreshCloud offers real-time predictive data insights that improve efficiency in the delivery of produce to global consumers. Verigo's technology is the foundation of FreshCloud Transit Insights, and triggered a revamp of AgroFresh's AdvanStore offering, now called FreshCloud Storage Insights. FreshCloud Predictive Screening, also a component of the FreshCloud platform, predicts the risk of disorder development during storage by analyzing gene expression at commercial harvest, resulting in more informed storage management decisions. [Image Credit: © AgroFresh]

AgTech Firm Sues Walmart, Alleging Illegal Use Of Food Waste Technology

Agricultural tech company Zest Labs and its parent company Ecoark Holdings are suing Walmart in federal court for $2 billion, alleging violations of the Arkansas Trade Secrets Act and other offenses. Data created and insights created by Zest Labs’ Zest Fresh technology reduces field to shelf food waste and improves delivered freshness, helping food distributors and retailers reduce the $85 billion problem of fresh food waste. Zest Labs in 2015 helped Walmart adopt the technology, in the process sharing trade secrets. In March 2018, Walmart announced Eden, a technology to keep track of food freshness from farms to stores. Zest Labs says it was “surprised and concerned by how similar Walmart’s Eden description was to Zest Fresh,” triggering the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas. [Image Credit: © Zest Labs]

Investors See Big Opportunities In Food Waste Solutions Start-Ups

Four start-ups that are battling food waste in their own unique ways have secured significant backing from major investors. Four-year-old BlueCart, originally founed to provide restaurants with an online procurement tool, realized that the technology also reduced waste. The company raised $22 million in three years from VCs. It now boasts 53,642 foodservice venues and 7,078 suppliers that have cut food waste by 52 percent. Other food waste start-ups include: Winnow, helping commercial kitchens cut food waste with a monitor and digital scale connected to a tablet ($11.5 million in funding); and FoodMaven, providing an online marketplace and logistics to capture revenues from lost food ($9.1 million). Funding initiative ReFED says more than $100 million in private funding has been provided to food waste innovators. [Image Credit: © BlueCart]

After Whole Foods, Former co-CEO Tackles The Food Waste Problem

Former Whole Foods Market co-CEO Walter Robb has joined the boards of two companies focused on reduction of food waste. Robb left the company when Whole Foods was sold to Amazon and has since become an investor, mentor and adviser to FoodMaven, a digital platform company that sells oversupplied and imperfect food to restaurants at a significant discount, and to Apeel Sciences, which extends the shelf life of produce using a natural coating. Both companies give grocers tools to address the mismatch between supply and demand, Robb says. He also says he’s a fan of upcycled products such as Renewal Mill's okara flour, made from a by-product of soymilk production, and Regrained's Supergrain+, made from spent distiller grains. [Image Credit: © USDA | Wikimedia Commons]

Big Investors Back Food Waste App Start-Up

Two-year-old Swedish tech start-up Karma has caught the interest of serious investors intrigued by an app that links restaurants and supermarkets with consumers looking for a food bargain. The company just completed a $12 million Series A funding round whose participants include Bessemer Venture Partners of the U.S., Kinnevik, and Electrolux, the global appliance manufacturer. So far Karma has convinced 1,500 food sellers, including hotels, cafes and bakeries, to distribute surplus food to 350,000 Karma users. The win-win proposition gives customers half-price food while providing food sellers income on food that otherwise would end up in the dumpster. [Image Credit: © Karma]

Denmark Continues Leadership In Food Waste Efforts

A Danish collaboration of players in the food industry has committed to halve food waste in the country by 2030. The collaboration comprises 17 Danish food makers, retailers, and NGOs hopes to improve climate action through lower CO2 emissions, to ensure better use of the Earth's resources, and contribute positively to the Danish economy. Among participants in the partnership are Denmark’s largest food retailer, Salling Group, along with food processors Nestlé, Unilever, Arla, and HK Scan. Backing the collaboration are anti-food waste group Stop Wasting Food, and Danish food redistribution organization The Food Bank. Nearly 2,000 tons of food waste are produced every day – 700,000 tons annually – in the Danish food chain. [Image Credit: © Stop Wasting Food]

Full Harvest Hopes To Keep Surplus Produce Out Of Landfills

Online surplus produce marketplace Full Harvest has snagged $8.5 million in a Series financing round led by Spark Capital. The company aggregates excess produce supply at scale and provides a buy/sell experience to growers and food buyers via software. Full Harvest will use the investment to further scale its technology platform, expand its U.S. footprint and triple the size of its technology, sales and operations teams. The company says it has already helped large farms sell and deliver nearly seven million pounds of produce – keeping it from landfills – driving revenue for farmers and savings for food and beverage companies. Other benefits include the conservation of drinking water and the prevention of CO2 emissions. [Image Credit: © Full Harvest]

Consultancy Says Businesses, Governments Should Partner On Food Waste

According to a report by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), aggressive action by companies, agricultural players, governments, and others can significantly reduce a global food waste problem expected to hit 2.1 billion tons – worth $1.5 trillion – through 2030. Five key drivers of the problem include: lack of awareness by consumers and others; inadequate supply chain infrastructure; supply chain inefficiency; a lack of collaboration within the food value chain; and poorly designed tax and regulatory policies. The report suggests 13 concrete initiatives companies can take to help combat the problem, addressing a major societal challenge while delivering business value. [Image Credit: © Sporkist | Wikimedia Commons]

Ugandan Student’s Invention Speeds Drying Of Fruits, Vegetables

A 23-year-old Ugandan engineering student has invented a produce drying device that he believes could help solve a serious food waste problem in Africa and beyond. Dubbed the Sparky Dryer, the dehydrator runs on garden waste – not electricity, which is scarce. It dries fruit and vegetables quickly so they last months instead of days, cutting down on food waste. Lawrence Okettayot’s device – starting price $80 – looks like a small refrigerator and can dehydrate 10 kg of mangoes in two hours. A small chamber contains a gas fire that heats a separate drying chamber above where the sliced produce is stacked in shelves. A catalytic converter prevents harmful gases from being released during the drying process. The device is a better option than traditional methods because it doesn’t rely on scarce electricity and can operate during the rainy season. [Image Credit: © www.Nhillfilms.com]

Study Sheds Light On Why Younger Adults Tend To Be Chronic Food Wasters

Research from the University of Illinois shows that young adults have a higher tendency to waste food compared to other age groups because food management behaviors that might prevent food waste weren’t learned yet or weren’t necessary. In focus groups with college students aged 18–24, the researchers also found that there were differences in perceptions and behaviors among those who lived on- or off-campus; there was a sense of apathy about food waste; there was a lack of awareness of how much food is wasted, for example, in a university dining hall; constraints like transportation and environment – maybe no access to a refrigerator to store leftovers – contributed; many didn’t see their personal food-wasting as part of the overall problem; and many did not think changing their behavior would help. [Image Credit: © USDA]

Aramark Makes Inroads To Eliminating Single-Use Plastic In Its Operations

Customer service business, Aramark, which operates in the food and facilities management sectors, announced a commitment to reducing significantly single-use disposable plastics globally by 2022. To date, it has eliminated over 400,000 plastic straws from locations in the UK, with another 418,000 planned in Ireland by the end of the year. It has also replaced with a compostable substitute some five million plastic-lined coffee cups and soup containers. It is now setting its sights on other single-use plastics items, including bags and cutlery.[Image Credit: © Aramark]

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