Showing posts with label Food waste. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Food waste. Show all posts

Friday, August 12, 2016

Snactivism Gets Real

Snact, the United Kingdom’s only snack producer actively working to solve issues around food waste by using surplus produce, this week announced it has successfully closed a seed investment round with the help of ClearlySo, Europe’s leading impact investment bank. 
The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) estimates that one third of all food produced globally is wasted, which has huge economic, social and environmental implications. The UK alone bins £12.5 billion worth of food every year, including over 500 million bananas and 1.6 billion apples.
Snact is providing a unique solution to the global food waste issue by producing healthy and delicious snacks from perfectly good fruit and vegetables that otherwise get rejected in the UK for being too big, too small, too ugly, or simply too abundant. In 2016 alone, Snact forecasts it will save 50 tonnes of food, which is expected to increase to 4,320 tonnes by 2020, equivalent to more than 480 London double decker buses.
By providing a healthy solution to food waste, Snact is positioning itself as the UK’s most responsible snacking option, appealing to both the ethical and health-conscious consumer markets. 
Image credit: Snact
According to IIana Taub, co-founder of Snact: “Snactivism is about seeing the best in things and believing that lots of little acts can add up to something meaningful. By using surplus produce, we tackle the causes of food waste so that with every snack you make a positive act toward a better food system."

Snact is about to become even more sustainable. According to a recent tweet on the Snact Twitter account, "Incredible news: we'll be launching TIPA home compostable packaging very soon!" 

Michael Minch-Dixon, co-founder of Snact along with Ilana Taub, said: “This is obviously a great moment for us and shows how far we’ve come since we were making snacks ourselves in a rented kitchen in Hackney. Having this will allow us to reach a bigger scale meaning we’ll tackle more food waste and make more healthy snacks for snactivists out there!”
Mike Cowell, investment manager at ClearlySo, commented: “Snact has developed a unique product, brand and identity that not only demonstrates great commercial potential but effectively highlights the issues around food wastage in the UK and abroad. It is fantastic to see this clearly resonate with customers and investors, including angels from the food and marketing industries.”
Read more about Snact and Snactivism in this article where Snact was featured as one of 5 London Startups Striving For An Eco-Revolution.



Friday, June 5, 2015

Composting Food For Thought On World Environment Day #WED15

The relationship between dairy packaging and composting is not that obvious because much dairy packaging involves plastics, which currently are not compostable.

In honor of World Environment Day, and to clarify some of the issues around the composting of dairy packaging, and also composting terminology, I wrote an article, "On World Environment Day, think about this: Composting for dairy packaging may becoming sooner than you think" as a guest blog piece for Dairy Foods.

Compostable packaging will figure strongly both with exhibitors as well as with speakers at the IFTAnnual Meeting and the Global Food & Beverage Packaging Summit that are coming to Chicago in July, 2015

According to Daphna Nissenbaum the CEO of TIPA, who is a speaker at the Global Food & Beverage Packaging Summit, "As more municipalities develop a food waste collection infrastructure for composting, or as cities like New York encourage consumers to take food waste for composting to drop off sites as a part of the NYC Recycles program, the possibility of including compostable flexible packaging with food waste will have a major impact in diverting this type of packaging from landfill."

For brand owners and companies interested in composting the US Composting Council (follow on Twitter @USCompostingCou), offers useful fact sheets and free reports as does the Michigan State Extension (@MSUExtension) and GreenBlue (@GreenBlueorg), an environmental nonprofit dedicated to the sustainable use of materials in society.

The City of New York (@NYCgov), through the NYC Department of Sanitation (@NYCRecycles), oversees NYC’s waste prevention, recycling and composting programs, and offers drop-off sites throughout the five city boroughs as well as a Master ComposterCourse.