Reducing waste while creating a new way of giving
Replacing an obsolete donation model for one that maximizes value creation.
True pops is a social enterprise that processes blemished fruits and vegetables into frozen gourmet edibles, sold at farmers markets and grocery stores, and have the ensuing profits shared with local food banks.
This social enterprise model aims to increase the financial capital available to feeding the hungry and minimize the burden that fruit and vegetable waste has on the environment.
The revenue stream would allow a state-of-the-art system in the food bank to scale operations and increase the number of hungry people they feed.
True pop is an opportunity to engage the public in a new way of giving. We are supporting conscious consumption by providing delightful products and services to customers while enabling them to encourage responsible businesses.
Challenge
The team aimed to infiltrate an existing system to make it more efficient and socially impactful.
An opportunity exists for fruits and vegetables to be recovered (by donation or by discounted sale) from local farmers and farmers market vendors that are not suitable for sale but are still edible.
In the United States 40% of food goes uneaten (2012 Natural Resource Defense Council) while one in six Americans lacks a secure supply of food (Gunders, 2012).
Food banks like the SF Food Bank specialize in feeding the hungry and have the capacity and network to provide food to marginalized populations. However, consistency within the food supply value chain is a challenge.
Process
Our hypothesis: There is potential value in the fruits and vegetables that are not fit for sale. Attaching a profit incentive to minimizing food waste can result in a replicable and scalable model impacting waste from farm to fork.
Talking with multiple stakeholders, we uncovered that:
Consumer perception prevents farmers from bringing to market some of their better tasting fruits and vegetables and forces them to divert a majority of this output to animal feed and composting as they have limited capacity to repurpose it.
Due to a lack of consistency in quantity/quality of food donations, it is more valuable for food banks to receive money. Every dollar they get can be used to procure $6 worth of food.
Consumer demand and business support infrastructure exist for developing local and socially conscious food enterprises.
Value
True Pops contributes to reducing the burden of hunger in America with a 15% profit donation model to food banks in California. As the social enterprise grows and profits rise, by year five 25% of profits donated can yield 106,276 meals.
Support local farmers and the gift economy by sourcing from local farms that share True Pop's mission.
True Pops was designed to reduce waste in the food supply chain and see business as a tool that can be used to support this end and enable conscious consumption.
Using the volumes of produce recovered as a baseline, True Pops can save a combined 5,000 lbs of CO2 in year one and over 250,000 lbs of CO2 at the end of year five - emissions savings equivalent to removing 42 cars from America's roads for an entire year.
Outcome
- business opportunity report
- prototyped production
- market validation
- consumer testing
- impact projections
Project developed in collaboration with:
Alex Ali, Sally Yee, Abinash Pradhan and Isaac Buwembo.