Pennies per pound. Success in the food industry comes down to driving volume while controlling costs; companies make pennies per each pound of food sold, but it adds up when done at scale. With scale comes responsibility. Industry is responsible for 23% of total US greenhouse gas emissions, and there’s a perceived tradeoff within industry between financial efficiency and environmental responsibility. Continuous Foods was built with the conviction that fighting climate change can (and must) be good for business. Upcycling and measurement bridge the gap between good for business and business for good:

Low costs drive scale in the food industry, where profit margins are razor-thin. Let’s use chicken as an example and work backwards from the consumer. There’s a cohort of consumers who purchase chicken with no antibiotics, no pesticides, no cages, and they are willing to pay a premium for it. But consumers are facing 30% higher average prices compared to 2019; sales of organic chicken are down 7% versus last year; and 69% of consumers say that the price of chicken is more important than last year. Retailers, food service providers, and restaurants must balance this price sensitivity with increasing cost to serve. Keeping prices stable for consumers means companies must make up for their cost increases with a greater volume of sales.

High volume typically means more resources consumed and more waste generated, but industry is leading the charge to reduce its carbon footprint. Total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from industry, including electricity, have declined by 22% since 1990. Walmart’s Project Gigaton uses its scale and influence over manufacturers to avoid a gigaton of greenhouse gas emissions from the global value chain by 2030, equivalent to taking over 200 million passenger vehicles off US roads for a year. Impact at Walmart’s scale means that even small shifts in the product supply chain via changes in production processes can have significant environmental benefits. But how can food companies achieve these carbon reduction goals in their products’ supply chain with ever-thinning margins? Investments in carbon reduction that result in any meaningful cost increase without a proven lift in sales are non-starters.

Environmental initiatives falter when they do not align with rigorous cost-control strategies and cannot measure their impact, making sustainable practices seem unsustainable from a business perspective and preventing widespread adoption across the food industry. There’s a solution that can help eliminate this tradeoff – upcycling. By using surplus materials across a product’s lifecycle, a process known as upcycling, businesses transform what would be an expense into an asset. Every year, ~33% of the US food supply goes to waste, sending nearly ~80M tons to landfill and costing an estimated $428B. These volumes damage the environment and contribute to climate change, comprising 24% of landfill inputs and 6.1% of total US greenhouse gas emissions. Upcycling reduces the environmental burden of waste and lowers material costs by turning waste into ingredients. Using chicken as the example, surplus food that cannot be donated for human consumption can be repurposed into an ingredient for chicken feed. These upcycle feed-fed chickens are sold to retailers, restaurants, or food service companies without sacrificing quality or increasing price, while significantly reducing carbon emissions because that surplus food was diverted from a landfill. But how can we measure the impact of this carbon reduction?

Continuous Foods created a proprietary algorithm that measures carbon reduction from upcycling efforts, verified by industry leader Data Quality Services (DQS), based on carbon accounting practices. We help companies using upcycled ingredients measure their impact. We connect food companies with upcycling innovators to help reduce carbon emissions in their product supply chains. And we do not charge a premium for our services, ensuring that our partners can turn environmental responsibility into a competitive advantage, rather than a cost center. I founded Continuous Foods because I am committed to demonstrating that business for good is good for business. Join us in redefining what it means to be sustainable in the food industry.