Every year, roughly one third – or 1.4 billion tons – of the food produced in the world for human consumption ends up in landfills. By some estimates, this adds up to nearly $1 trillion of annual squander and the production of nearly 8 percent of human-caused greenhouse gases. And while addressing the problem would require drastic lifestyle adjustments in individuals, entrepreneurs are seeing food waste as a big business opportunity. In the US alone , companies fighting food waste attracted around $125 million in venture capital and private equity funding in the first 10 months of 2018, a number that is expected to rise. The hope for serious change and the greatest opportunity for investment rests with grocery stores, where narrow margins and tough competition among the biggest retailers provide bottom-line incentives. Start-ups are also increasingly getting more involved in combating the waste issue by offering solutions like selling discounted surplus food to restaurants and commercial kitchens or using machine learning to help retailers buy just enough to keep inventories in balance.
Investors are putting millions of dollars into companies that fight food waste
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