Food-Waste Startups Attract Interest as Grocers and Others go Green

Date: November 3, 2021

Source: News Room

Food waste startups are attracting venture-capital as grocery retailers and other companies dealing with excess food are expanding their environmental, social and governance efforts, according to analytics firm PitchBook Data Inc. The US EPA estimates that between 30 and 40 percent of all food is thrown away each year costing the US economy over $161 billion. To address this, some startups are using artificial intelligence to gauge customer demand with the hope of reducing leftover food, while others are using technology to streamline logistics processes and resell misshapen produce that grocery stores turn down.

Some notable examples:

  • Goodr (www.goodr.co) charges a fee to clients, such as large companies, event venues, hospitals, and airports, for the use of its waste-management software service, which tracks an organization's surplus food from pickup to donation and also handles delivery logistics and automatically generates tax donation receipts.

  • Wasteless Ltd. (www.wasteless.com), an Israel-based startup, uses AI to automatically lower a perishable food product's price as it gets closer to its best-before date.

  • Seattle-based Shelfbot Co., doing business as Shelf Engine (www.shelfengine.com), uses AI to predict demand for certain foods using a grocery store's data. The company has some high-profile investors like power couple Portia de Rossi and Ellen DeGeneres and snowboarder Shaun White.

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