EcoScraps Closes the Loop on Grocery Waste

An innovative start-up is providing a way for grocery stores to compost their organic waste and then resell it as organic potting soil and fertilizer.

EcoScraps, operating for just three years, just signed its first national deal, with Target, which will carry the potting oil in 1700 stores across the US.

The company collects fruits and vegetables that would otherwise be thrown away, and turns it into organic lawn and garden products that the store can sell.

Grocery stores get an easy way to compost their waste instead of disposing it in landfills, where as it degrades it turns into methane.

"There is no national brand that is bringing organic, sustainable lawn and garden products to consumers like EcoScraps is," says Nancy Pfund, managing partner at DBL Investors. "The growth that this company has seen in just a few short years validates that EcoScraps answers a large consumer need that has not been met until now."

Last year, Businessweek named EcoScraps as one of the Top 25 Most Promising Social Ventures in America. The company was founded by two business students in 2010,

Food waste is a huge problem in the US because it uses so many other resources. Getting food to our tables eats up 10% of all the energy used in the US and swallows up half our land and 80% of all freshwater consumed. But  40% of all the food  grown is thrown away each year – 34 million tons – according to a recent report from the Natural Resources Defense Council.

FoodStar is another start-up we recently wrote about, which is tackling food waste by working with groceries to sell "imperfect" fruits and vegetables.

Here’s EcoScrap’s website: