TRANSCIPT
Speaker 1:Method to the madness is next.
Speaker 2:You are listening to method to the madness, a biweekly public affairs show on k a l x Berkeley Celebrating Bay area innovators I have in the studio with me today, [00:00:30] Ben Simon, the CEO and cofounder of imperfect and Evan Hayslett, they're ugly produce enthusiast. You guys are solving a really important problem and that is food waste.
Speaker 3:What is imperfect? Imperfect is America's first ugly produce brand. So ugly produce is all that food that doesn't meet the strict cosmetic standards of grocery beauty and supermarkets won't take it. So it ends up in the landfill and that's about 20% of all produce that's grown in the country on farms, which amounts [00:01:00] to about 6 billion pounds of produce annually. That just goes into trillions of dollars in just waste. So the National Resource Defense Council actually estimated that all sources of waste in the country amount to about $165 billion. Wow. Still enormous though, and it's just wasted resources going right down the drain. I want to know how you got to this story and I understand that there were three main founders, you and Ben Chesler were in school together.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So I was at [inaudible], I was a student at University of Maryland and uh, Ben Chesser just [00:01:30] graduated from Brown University. So throughout the last four years together we work together on a co-founding this really cool nonprofit called food recovery network. What was that about? Yeah, so it was also in the food waste space and food recovery network is a, a student movement at 150 colleges across the country that basically start this movement together. Yeah. With us and a few other friends at different colleges around the country started it. We noticed there was a tremendous amount of food going to waste from our campus dining halls every night. [00:02:00] Basically the surplus food that the dining halls had prepared, uh, but not sold that night. So we basically developed partnerships with the dining services to go in there, collect that food and donate it to local homeless shelters and started at University of Maryland and Brown University.
Speaker 4:And, uh, just really grew really quickly as, as word spread to other students at other colleges. Do you have any problems with that? Just taking food from one place to another? What were the legal challenges or were there any, you know, it's, it's [00:02:30] surprisingly easy and there's a lot of misconceptions around the legal challenges. So if you talk to the average restaurant owner or dining a dining hall manager or grocery store manager and ask them, can you donate their extra food? Typically you'll get an answer. That's, you know, no, unfortunately we have to throw this away because there are, you know, legal issues, we'd basically get sued. I have heard that too. Yeah. You know, and we meet all the people all the time. Um, it's a very common misconception. [00:03:00] And so there's actually a law that was passed in 1996 called the bill Emerson Good Samaritan food donation act.
Speaker 4:And as a federal law protects people in all 50 states, any food donors who want to donate their surplus food to people in need in their community are protected under the law, every community in the United States. Absolutely. So you had this great idea, it was obviously a success. How did you measure whether or not it was a success? So we measured it in terms of, you know, how many, uh, pounds [00:03:30] of food we are donating and how many meals that amounted to a number one. That was first and foremost. And so we were donating just a ton of food right away. I mean, we're done any amount, 150 or even 200 pounds of food every single night from just one dining hall at University of Maryland. So very quickly, you know, in our very first semester did about 15,000 pounds of food and all of it went to people in need.
Speaker 4:And so, you know, again, just word spread. And today actually food recovery network is right about to reach [00:04:00] a monumental milestone, which is about a million pounds of food donated. And our first full universities again are in this network today. 150 for university of California Berkeley. Yes it is. One of them is the entire UC system in this network. You know, I don't think the entire system is, so if people are interested in uh, applying to start a chapter on their campus, they can just go to food recovery network.org and apply. Okay. So that's still going strong. But you've taken it to this next level, what happened then? [00:04:30] Yeah, so a few years ago at, at food recovery network, uh, you know, we really started asking the question, okay, if we were students and we were just able to, you know, really reach this scale and if there was really this much food going to waste in college dining hall settings, where else was food going to waste?
Speaker 4:And where were the big opportunities in America to take food that really otherwise would go to waste and develop a market for that and redirect that food towards going to people instead. And so we [00:05:00] started talking to different advisors and some of the leading authors and experts around food waste in America to try to get a better sense of the issue. And it turned out farms are actually the number one place in America where food is going to waste. And you know, as I think I'm in my, I mentioned, so it was about 20% of all produce in the country is going to waste according to the NRDC. And so, you know, the number one reason is, is these cosmetic issues. And so when we heard about that, and uh, actually last December [00:05:30] I came out here to California and did a tour throughout the central valley, uh, with Ron Clark who then became my cofounder for imperfect.
Speaker 4:And Ron basically introduced me to all these growers and I, I witnessed all of these packing houses throughout central valley where they would literally be sorting a million pounds of an item in one day and 15% of that would just be a byproduct. That's what they call this by-product. It goes to the landfill. Why isn't it going to feed or other animals, farm animals. Some [00:06:00] of it is, uh, so the, the, uh, 20% statistic is supposed to speak to what is going to landfills, compost and animal feed. So basically not going toward human consumption. And so, you know, a lot of this product basically is just re rejected from the grocery store because of these cosmetic challenges. I think it's fine that the animals and the compost, that part works right. I mean that's part of our whole system. But what percentage of that actually goes [00:06:30] to the landfill of that 20% you know, I couldn't give you an exact percentage.
Speaker 4:And, and that's one of the challenges within food waste is that we need more data and more research on that methane and these landfills does create, yeah, creates methane food waste is one of the biggest emitters of methane in the country. But to rewind for just a second, different people have different takes on this, but while compost is definitely better than the landfill, there's sort of a hierarchy that the EPA has put out. It's called the food recovery hierarchy, [00:07:00] which basically draws these sort of different tiers of where food waste can be redirected. So basically compost is better than landfill. Animal feed is better than compost, you know, and then human consumption is better than than animal feed of course. And you know, first and foremost, reducing food waste in the first place is the best thing we can do. So I want to talk a little bit about Ron Clark because he's very well known in this area of reducing waste and repositioning food.
Speaker 4:He does this farm [00:07:30] to family program here in California. Yeah, Rob Tom played a big role in helping to develop that. And that's part of the food bank system, is it not? That's correct. So what does he do for you guys now? So Ron has transitioned out of the California Association of food banks of the last few years. He played a major role over the last 15 years with the food banks to develop farm to family. And so that's about 140 million pounds per year of this product, not going away. It's getting redirected towards the food banks. [00:08:00] And so throughout that time, Ron was feeling really awesome about being able to redirect some of this towards the food banks, but it was also scratching his head a little bit because you know, for every one pound he was able to redirect. There's about 20 more still going to waste just in the state of California.
Speaker 4:Did he seek you out or did you find him? It was really serendipitous actually, and it was the connection happened right here on UC Berkeley's campus last October. There was a major food waste event. It was called the zero food waste forum. So we're literally just actually sitting at [00:08:30] a picnic table and I was talking to one of our advisors for food recovery network about how we were sort of starting to experiment with this idea of selling produce that otherwise would be wasted. And it was gaining traction in the DC area, which is where I'm from. And wondering, you know, how we can sort of tap into better supply sources. And our advisor, who's Tristram Stuart, he gave a Ted talk on food based stuff like that is they're like, oh, that's your challenge. You got to talk to Rod. And I was like, who's Rod? And he's like, he's the guy with the, uh, the orange, you know, San Francisco [00:09:00] giants sweatshirt. He's sitting twos, two seats down from me at this picnic table. Let me introduce you to Ben, and so that's really how it happened. That's great. Yeah, and so he became really entrenched in, he's still with you guys, right? And he's with us full time. Yeah.
Speaker 5:Let's listen to a short segment. Tristram Stewart's Ted talk, but when we're talking about food being thrown away, we're not talking about rotten stuff. We're not talking about stuff that's beyond the pale. We're talking about good fresh [00:09:30] food that is being wasted on a colossal scale. The fact is we have an enormous buffer in rich countries between ourselves and hunger, and when we chop down for us as we are every day to grow more and more food, when we extract water from depleting water reserves, when we emit fossil fuel emissions in the quest to grow more and more food, and then we would throw away so much of it, we have to think about what we can start saving. When you start going up the supply chain, you find where the real food waste [00:10:00] is happening on a Gargantuan scale. Go one step up and you get to farmers who throw away sometimes a third or even more of their harvest because of cosmetic standards.
Speaker 5:This farmer, for example, has invested 16,000 pounds in growing spinach, not one leaf of which he harvested because there was a little bit of grass growing in amongst it. Potatoes that are cosmetically imperfect or going for pigs, parsnips that are too small for supermarket specifications. Tomatoes in tenor reef, oranges in Florida, bananas in [00:10:30] Ecuador where overs did last year, all being discarded. This is one day's waste from one banana plantation in Ecuador, all being discarded, perfectly edible because of the wrong shape or size. If we do that to fruit and vegetables, you bet we can do it to animals, to liver, lungs, heads, tails, kidneys, testicles. All of these things which are traditional, delicious and nutritious parts of our gastronomy go to waste fish. 40 to 60% of European fish [00:11:00] are discarded at sea. They don't even get landed if we regard it as socially unacceptable to waste food on a colossal scale. If we make a noise about it, tell corporations about it. Tell governments we want CNN food waste. We do have the power to bring about that change for the sake of the planet we live on for the sake of our children, for the sake of all the other organisms that share our planet with us. We are terrestrial animal and we depend on our land for food at the moment we are trashing our land to grow food that they want it.
Speaker 6:Okay.
Speaker 4:[00:11:30] Can you talk a little bit about the byproducts of food waste? You know, we're using a lot of water. There's a lot of fertilizer that goes into this food and then it's wasted. And then lastly, um, the fuel that it takes to even do these crops
Speaker 1:and then to throw them away, isn't that enough economic incentive to, to do this?
Speaker 3:[00:12:00] Oh yeah, absolutely. Again, you know, some, I think has been mentioned, it's, it is really difficult. There's not enough data around this issue, but we do have some really hard facts about food waste contributing to 33 million tons of landfill waste and growing a lot about 11 trillion gallons of water waste. And when you think about California as the major producer of produce in the country and the drought that we're going through, and you hear about all these really important things you can do in your home domestically in your business to [00:12:30] conserve water. But one of the biggest things that's happening is there's all this food wasted on the farm that all that water isn't going to productive use. And again, as I said, I'm Dana Gunders from the NRDC producing this awesome report on food waste, about $165 billion in wasted resources. And then I think as we mentioned, methane emissions again, so food when it decomposes anaerobically in the landfill, produces about 18% of all methane emissions in the u s so it, yeah, it's this enormous, enormous environmental resource, economic impact.
Speaker 2:[00:13:00] If you're just tuning in, you're listening to method to the madness. A biweekly public affairs show on k a l x Berkeley Celebrating Bay area innovators, 20% of produce grown in America is rejected from grocery stores because it is ugly. Imperfect allows consumers to get a chance to buy this produce at a discount. And farmers make extra revenue. Today [00:13:30] on the program I have Ben Simon, CEO and Co, founder of imperfect and Eben Hayslett, imperfect, ugly produce enthusiast.
Speaker 1:How are you introducing this idea to the consumer market?
Speaker 3:What we're doing in a, in a number of ways. So one big way is just through events. We're trying to get involved in as many kinds of food related waste environmental [00:14:00] events as possible. That way we meet the leaders in the community, we meet big movers and people who would be champions of this idea. Um, we know that most people find out about imperfect through friends. So it's really good to meet lots of people at people who are, is very excited about it. We're also trying to go directly to the consumer. We're just trying to get out there and talk to people. And you're also offering boxes to the consumer rate, like a CSA kind of thing. Right. So that's exactly what we do. That's the majority of our offering is um, these boxes that we deliver right to your home. So you can order weekly, biweekly, [00:14:30] and you get this box of we'll do it on the campus here. I understand. Yeah. We've got partnerships with about six of the student collapse on campus and that's been really fun. The students are loving it. You know, students have this really great vibe and energy and they're really excited about the environmental impact, but also obviously very excited about the affordability. Right. So how much cheaper is it than a regular,
Speaker 3:it's significantly cheaper than your regular CSA. It's probably about 20% of like a farmer's market CSA. But compared to the grocery store, [00:15:00] I'd say it's about 30 to 50% off usually. So if there's students, you know, we talked to students all the time of saying, oh my goodness, I just came from Safeway and you're telling me that you're selling this same stuff for half the price. It's usually about a dollar.
Speaker 4:And they just brought a box into our studio and I'll tell you it's, it's beautiful. The, the, the produce looks like something you put in the centerpiece and also you buy this stuff in the supermarket and then you wait for it to ripen. This stuff is ripe, it's beautiful, ugliest, beautiful, ugly as beautiful. And that's part of the message, [00:15:30] this empowerment message of kind of reclaiming imperfection. And that's why we call the company in perfect as, because we're all imperfect and you know, it's just so ridiculous that we have these standards of beauty in all areas of our life. And it's like wow, now even food, even in the grocery store, if everything looks so perfect, I tend to just keep walking. I'm not [inaudible] a little bit, it looks fake. Or the apples, they all look the same. They taste the same. It's boring, you know?
Speaker 4:[00:16:00] And when they work so hard to, you know, produce different technologies and stuff like that to keep all of the produce basically looking the same and they're, they're really growing produce to look a certain way. Often it's tasteless. And we hear that a lot from our customers. A lot of the customers that have come to imperfect have come to us because they're really tired of that aspect of the food system. Now I understand you have a deal, I don't know if it's complete yet with Rayley's the supermarket chain. [00:16:30] Yeah, absolutely. So, so Evan, we'll talk exciting. Yeah, we're really excited about that. And so that's, you know, working with 10 of their stores in the Sacramento area. Uh, it's been going on since July. Uh, and so it's really kind of the first major grocery store chain in America selling ugly produce. And so know they do it in France.
Speaker 4:They do do it. They do it in France. Yeah. With Inter Marshay. Um, there's, there's several chains in France, I believe. There's a couple in Canada, a couple in Australia, South Africa, Germany, the UK. So [00:17:00] really all over the world. Ugly has been named kind of like one of the top five trends in the food system. Um, so we're really, you sort of noticed what's going on across the world and are trying to bring this trend to America. Okay. So you've got it in Railey's, you deliver boxes, you tried to get the word out by taking part in speaking events. What other challenges have you come up against? Just got four months old. Yeah, we just said on into a warehouse in Emeryville. One of the challenges that we often [00:17:30] get is kind of a need to educate people around it and people wonder, okay, why imperfect?
Speaker 4:You know, why is it and perfect, why does it, why does it shape that way? And actually we get the question often. Like for example, we're selling persimmons. I'm not sure if that was in the box, but did it look really wonky and crazy? I liked it. Yeah. So, but, but obviously not the same shape that you'd see in a grocery store. Right. So, you know, we have persimmons that look like kind of like a stool on a second and that not that [00:18:00] one of them had a nose. Yeah. It has like those or it has like three big legs kind of coming off of it. Um, and so basically, you know, people see that sometimes and they wonder, Oh, is it look that way? Because it's like GMO crazy or like, you know, it's mutated and stuff like that. Um, and often it's, it's actually exactly the opposite. Are you going out to schools and educating young people? Like elementary schools and,
Speaker 3:yeah. Yeah. We're, we're, we are definitely trying to connect with elementary schools, connect with kind of parent teacher organizations. [00:18:30] There's a lot of farmers markets at elementary schools throughout the week in this area. And so we've connected with some of the leaders of this farmer's markets, especially another amazing food organization in general called Food Corp. They have volunteers all over the country in elementary schools educating around food. And so we're connecting with them and I would think they would connect to the ugly. Exactly. Yeah. Static
Speaker 4:business majors in college or something completely different. So I was a, a government and politics major actually. I kind of bounced around, ended up with that for me [00:19:00] in college. I kind of went into it knowing that I wanted to do something to change the world because there are so many huge challenges right now to society. And so it's kind of what I ended up with. What was your [inaudible]
Speaker 3:major? Um, I double majored in Econ and environmental studies. So not business, but it's relevant and it's, it was a, it was a very fun and exciting major. Yeah, but you're both from the east coast. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And you're living here now.
Speaker 4:Happy to be out here. Oh, you love it out here. And wanting to live here for a long time. You did an Indiegogo [00:19:30] campaign for this warehouse. That's right. How long did it take you to raise the funds? I think we, I think there was a 30 day campaign. That's short. It was short. Yeah, it was definitely exciting. You know, in the end we surpassed our goal and raised 38,000 from donations from friends and family. So yeah, it was great. So what are your plans for the future? Do you feel like you need to roll out more warehouses or are you just going to sit with this and we're, we're good with this way house for now it's, it's [00:20:00] 5,000 square feet. So it's room to grow. It's an Emeryville right in the heart of the warehouse district 63rd and Hollis, feel free to pay us a visit.
Speaker 4:Anybody. Right? Kind of near cliff bar and Pixar and all those folks now it feels great. There's, there's plenty of room to grow where one of our next things we're doing, we're installing like a walk-in fridge. So, you know, it's gonna give us a lot of room to grow in terms of, you know, how much produce we can distribute each week. Um, since we're significantly had a schedule [00:20:30] in terms of how many customers we thought we'd have, cause there are a lot of CSS in this area. I mean, yeah, a lot of delivery, our years organic produce ever. We're working on that. So our sustainable farms and we're working on developing an organic line. We've heard that from a ton of people. Obviously walking around Berkeley. Yeah. Um, get the question a lot. So we've been developing an organic waitlist. I got a 102 hundred people or something on that.
Speaker 4:And so we're, we're hoping to roll that out and early 2016 [00:21:00] and right now we, you know, there's always a couple items in the bunks that are organic depending on who we're switching from at the time. But yeah, it'll be good to get that all organic. Organic is the only issue. I mean, local sustainable farms who maybe haven't met all of the criteria yet. It's good stuff. Still. I understand you distribute to some areas of the Oakland food desert, the so-called food desert. How do you do that? Are you working with Rama Matti at People's community grocery? We've touched base with Rama. [00:21:30] My Co founder, Ben Chester sat out with him a few months ago and I think we're still still sort of figuring out the best way to partner together. Yeah. We're, we're looking for any type of partnership, especially to reach more folks in food desert neighborhoods within different parts of Oakland.
Speaker 4:You know, that's a big part of our mission. And so we actually provide a reduced cost box each week. Our normal boxes already pretty reduced at, at just $12 a week for 12 pounds of produce. Uh, but we an [00:22:00] even further reduced costs for just $8 a week. And what is your criteria for that? Even more reduced. So we use the same government criteria for snap benefits when people register@imperfectproduce.com for for our produce, they can just sort of select that and put their information in. How do you see your impact? Let's go out five years time. Where do you see your organization? Where do you want to see it? Absolutely. Yeah. So, so imperfect has a huge vision for what we [00:22:30] can do to reduce food waste. So, you know, one of the biggest issues that makes up food waste is the fact that we are currently wasting about 6 billion pounds of fresh produce every single year because it doesn't meet grocery stores, cosmetic standards.
Speaker 4:So you know, we are trying to build a sustainable and scalable business model around reducing this food waste and getting as much as possible of this 6 billion pounds of perfectly good product to market. So, you know, we're doing that through retail, [00:23:00] through our produce delivery subscription here in the bay. And so we want to expand both of those. So we're continually growing each week by about 50 or a hundred customers in terms of our produce delivery subscription here in Berkeley and Oakland. And so we want to continue to scale that up. We're trying to be at about a 2,500 or 3000 customers in a, in the bay by next summer. Um, and in terms of retail, we're, we're working on some really major partnerships. Actually. We've got a few really interesting things coming up. We're working on three [00:23:30] pound grab and go bags for mandarins that are not quite cute enough to be, let's just say QT brand or any other brand, um, hinder ends. And so they're a little bit too big. They've got some scarring on them, uh, but they taste, so we're basically working with a few major retailers on, on getting that and, and, and now it'd be great because with that we'd actually be able to get the parties out to consumers in a variety of different states. I'm doing hopefully several truckloads of the produce [00:24:00] every single month. It sounds like you're really growing.
Speaker 3:Did you have a defining moment in your life that set you on this path?
Speaker 4:I had one experience personally when I was, um, in high school, uh, my dad actually ended up taking in this guy for a couple of years who, uh, really otherwise would've been homeless. Um, this is in the DC area and it was just some guy that he met playing tennis, uh, at a public court, you know, had played, played with him maybe three times. And uh, the [00:24:30] guy had kind of been bouncing around on different couches and sort of asked the question in my dad, you know, hey Vic, is there any way I could stay with you? I'm in this situation. It was supposed to be for a week or two, ended up being two years. And uh, you know, the guy really ended up sort of being part of our family. And so I think, you know, from, from that perspective that kind of allowed me to gain insights in terms of like some of the struggles that he was going through. He had a job, he worked 40 hours a week. It was a night shift at a grocery [00:25:00] store, stocking shelves, but making minimum wage as a man who's about 50 years old. Um, and having, not having healthcare, having high costs, you know, just different things, different challenges of, um, America's working poor. How about you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't even know if there's really one defining moment. I think, you know, if I look back, food has really always been kind of the centerpiece of my life. And I think I took that for granted. I was lucky enough to have parents who made dinner every night and we would sit down and it [00:25:30] was kind of that, that old style traditional sit down as a family and have a dinner. Um, and that's kind of a privilege these days. And I, when I, when I realized that I think later in high school and into college, and I began to realize kind of all the injustice and it's just so hard to find access to fresh produce, fresh, affordable produce for most, for a lot of people in this country. And so I was moved by Ben's work with food recovery network. Um, there's so many awesome nonprofits doing work in this space, really, really inspirational [00:26:00] authors and activists around the country.
Speaker 3:And I, for me, it's really, it's really about food being the centerpiece of community and health and vitality and wellbeing. And to be able to be a part of a movement that makes that more accessible to everyone is amazing. Cause it breaks my heart that that's not the case. Yeah. How would our listeners get ahold of you if they're interested in knowing more about your company, maybe working for your company? Oh yes. So you can go to www.imperfectproduce.com. [00:26:30] You can find all the information there. We're actually about to roll out a new and improved and awesome, exciting website so you can look forward to that. And you can also feel free to reach out. I'm Evan. This has been heavier on the right. Yeah. They can reach you through. Yeah. Yes. So you can, um, and you can, when you go online and you sign up, you can get your first box free. Actually, if you use the coupon code cal ex, that's k a l. X. So for your first recurring box you can get, get it free, become a part of the imperfect family.
Speaker 2:I told both Ben and Evan [00:27:00] that they can drop by their food here anytime of day 24 seven because it will go instantly. Believe me, you guys are both pretty young, but you seem pretty wise for your age. What would you tell other entrepreneurs or hopeful entrepreneurs, something maybe you learned in this process and some wisdom to pass along to other entrepreneurs who are thinking about an idea maybe, you know, trying to solve a problem like you have.
Speaker 4:So you know, [00:27:30] one thing, this is just straight forward, but you know, I, I think it can be easy to sort of over intellectualize, making a difference. And, and often it's, you just kinda need to go out and get started. And I, I think that I personally didn't get it right the first time or the second time. I think, you know, I had sort of experimented with a lot of different projects. Some of them were more successful than others before eventually stumbling upon a few projects that were successful. So [00:28:00] I think it's important to, you know, just there's so many problems in the world, so many social issues. And you know, I talked to a lot of young people today and they feel it. They know that there's all these issues out there. So I think there can be a gap though sometimes between seeing the issues and getting started. And I just really encourage everybody to take that leap.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I would just add that I think youth have a lot of power. I think more power than they, than they realize. And we have a lot of great ideas [00:28:30] were an incredibly across the country. I'm just percentages, incredibly kind of forward thinking, progressive body of people who want to see the world become a better place. And I think that you can get a lot of amazing advice and wisdom from mentors and your professors and your teachers and your parents, but you always have to take it with a grain of salt. The kind of limitations that they may tell you in terms of what's possible, because everyone's going to give you advice that works for them and that's great. But you take what you can from that. And then remember, just like Ben [00:29:00] said, get out there. You can start having a difference.
Speaker 3:Bannon, the bands as we call them, venture has an event. Simon, they started food recovery network when they were in college. This is now the largest student run food waste movement in the country. It's student led, student volunteers get in touch with their administration, they build the movement, they donate all the food. These are students doing this. And it's an enormous movement. And so I would just say, get inspired, get in touch with other students, realize the power that you have read up, get educated on an issue and then go out there and do something. Cause [00:29:30] you can't.
Speaker 2:I want to thank you both for being on the program. Evan Hayzlett and Ben Simon. I hope you can come back again some time and um, bring more food and time. Thank so much.
Speaker 6:Yeah, you've been listening to method to the madness. We'll be back in two weeks. You can find all [00:30:00] the podcasts on iTunes university. [inaudible].
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