Food Waste Reduction Challenge: Business Models

Organization

Solution Description

Abokichi is a food brand that is harnessing century-old practices from Japan to upcycle okara into innovative and delicious products. Okara, the nutritious pulp (50% fibre and 25% protein) remaining after tofu/soymilk production, is a staple in Asian cuisine but has yet to find a market in Canada. Over 7,000 tons are wasted annually across Canada.

Blanc de gris developed a commercial mushroom growing process that coverts brewers’ spent grain for a substrate used to grow high-end, gourmet mushrooms. The company is currently developing a mushroom farm that is connected to a microbrewery so that brewers spent grain can be repurposed on site, rending transportation to landfill sites or other treatment sites unnecessary.

Circular Innovation Council offers the institutional, commercial, and industrial (IC&I) sector—Canada's largest generator of food waste—the ability to recover edible food and cost-effectively divert food waste otherwise lost to disposal through a co-operative buying financial model that can be replicated and scaled by communities across the country.

Food Cycle Science is partnering with small, rural, northern, and Indigenous communities on residential food waste diversion using their on-site FoodCycler technology. The FoodCycler transforms food waste into a nutrient-rich soil amendment in hours – keeping food waste out of landfills and reducing methane emissions caused by landfilled organics.

LOOP Synergies is an initiative powered by LOOP Mission which aims to facilitate and exponentially spread the use of upcycled ingredients in food manufacturing. LOOP creates fruit and vegetable based products (e.g., juices, purees and powder) that any food-manufacturer can easily use as ingredients in their production process, providing a cost-effective and easy to use solution to counter the challenges of working with discarded foods or by-products.

Outcast Foods obtains fresh “waste produce” and surplus produce from retailers, farmers, and agri-food businesses and converts it into whole plant powders and dehydrated products. The company is also developing solutions to deal with the complexities of sourcing, transporting and cleaning of waste stream food.

Savormetrics provides artificial intelligence (AI)-driven sensor devices that not only detect, but predict defects, contaminants and shelf life, allowing for smarter growing, inventory movement, and processing. The devices allow food sector businesses to reduce food waste and save significant costs.

Still Good upcycles brewers' spent grain, a nutrient-rich wasted material derived from the brewing industry that is high in fibre and protein. In the process of innovating upcycled food products, the company is also developing advanced technologies for processing barley brewers’ spent grain.

The Station Food Company purchases produce that would otherwise be treated as waste from local farms, offering fair market value. The company upcycles this produce, creating value-add products such as mashed potatoes and sells them to institutional buyers.

Top Grade Ag is introducing affordable on-farm grain drying to enable the adoption of pro-active harvesting on every farm. The Top Grade Ag bin instrumentation and web-based app provides a real-time dashboard for drying and monitoring tough grain in bin. Not only does this approach reduce losses associated with field drying of broad acre crops, it also saves farmers money.

TriCycle uses a circular economy approach to breed highly nutritious edible insects (for human and animal consumption) by feeding them food waste. The insect frass is transformed into organic fertilizer.

Vivid Machines helps fruit growers “see the invisible” by providing them with a real-time sensor and computer vision system so they can see every plant in detail throughout the entire season. By providing insights enabling early intervention, Vivid helps growers better manage crop loads to prevent quality issues and reduce food loss.