Dan Blake, the co-founder and chief executive officer of EcoScraps is turning food waste into a profitable compost business.
Mr. Blake said his idea sprang from having brunch at an all-you-can-eat restaurant in Utah, when he realized how much food waste he and his fellow customers produced. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that Americans produce 33 million tons of food waste every year, and Mr. Blake figured that the market was ripe for taking advantage of the rotten food.
After dumpster diving to collect scraps of discarded food, Mr. Blake began to experiment with different combinations to get the most fertile compost. He then sent the samples to a university testing lab for soil analysis to hone the recipe.
A major advantage for the company is that the primary resources it uses are free, Mr. Blake told Reuters.
“A business that doesn’t have to buy materials should, in theory, have really good margins,” he said.
