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Nature Fresh Farms Introduces New Program For Their Imperfect Produce
The Waste Me Nots program was recently created to leverage Nature Fresh Farms Tomatoes, Peppers, and Cucumbers that do not meet the criteria of their Quality Control team
Leamington, ON (April 13, 2021)
A recent loss-conscious program focuses on selling Nature Fresh Farms imperfect produce to reduce food waste.
The Waste Me Nots program was recently created to leverage Nature Fresh Farms Tomatoes, Peppers, and Cucumbers that do not meet the criteria of their Quality Control team. As most greenhouses hope to grow flawless quality produce, some product grows to be naturally bent or smaller in size. Although unique in shape and size, these vegetables still have the same nutritional value and flavor as their perfect counterparts. Nature Fresh Farms wants to put these pieces of produce in the spotlight, creating more of an opportunity to fight waste and give shoppers further access to nutritious foods.
‘We believe it’s important to ensure that nutritious and delicious produce does not go to waste,” shared Ray Wowryk, Director of Business Development. “By creating this program, we are helping our retailers with a ready-made waste reduction alternative.”
Since volume of this type of product is not predictable, the program cannot be guaranteed to supply specific quantities and will depend on the product grown. However, Nature Fresh Farm feels that the unpredictability is outweighed by the fact that their quality and freshness is worth rescuing and sharing with consumers, making the most of all their product grown.
“Sustainability is at the center of everything we do at Nature Fresh Farms. Not only does this encompass our packaging and growing processes but also that the food we grow gets utilized completely,” explained the Director of Sales, Matt Quiring. “The Waste Me Nots program helps us to reduce waste while allowing us to better service the price-focused shoppers looking for quality tasting products at a discounted price and let our retail partners bring in some incremental sales to the category.”
Nature Fresh Farms wants to bring more cost-effective options to its consumers and bring the focus back to the taste and freshness of the produce, not solely the look of it. They hope to break the cycle of imperfect food waste by offering discounted misshapen vegetables that there would normally not be a market for and expand the consumer’s knowledge of the type of produce they purchase.
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About Nature Fresh Farms
Continuously expanding, Nature Fresh Farms has become one of the largest independent, vertically integrated greenhouse vegetable farms in North America. As a year-round grower with farms in Leamington, ON, Delta, OH, and Mexico, Nature Fresh Farms prides itself on consistently delivering exceptional flavor and quality to key retailers throughout North America, while continuing to innovate and introduce more viable and sustainable growing and packaging solutions.
SOURCE:
Nature Fresh Farms | info@naturefresh.ca T: 519 326 1111 | www.naturefresh.ca
Vertical Farming: A Solution To Waste And Inefficiency In The Food Supply Chain?
The global food supply chain is in trouble. The coronavirus pandemic is only the latest crisis to highlight the inefficiencies and spotty reliability of the traditional model for getting food from farm to consumer
April 12, 2021
Robert J. Bowman, SupplyChainBrain
The global food supply chain is in trouble. The coronavirus pandemic is only the latest crisis to highlight the inefficiencies and spotty reliability of the traditional model for getting food from farm to consumer. Repeated instances of contamination reveal inadequacies in quality control and the tracking of product throughout the supply chain. And environmental concerns are raising serious questions about the impact of large-scale farming on the land, water, and air.
There’s a clear need for alternative methods of food production. One is vertical farming, a system of growing crops in stacked layers, spaced 24 to 36 inches apart, usually in greenhouse environments. Vertical farms can be constructed within any type of confined space, including dedicated buildings, shipping containers and even abandoned mineshafts. The equivalent of 60 acres of produce can be squeezed into a single greenhouse, with layers stacked six levels or more high.
Further advantages of vertical farming include complete protection from weather and crop pests, without the need for pesticides or other chemicals, and drastic reductions in water use. A pound of lettuce that requires 41 gallons of water with conventional farming needs just two gallons with vertical farming — in all, up to 99% less water than field-grown produce.
One such system is in operation outside Boston, Massachusetts by Crop One, which markets its products under the FreshBox Farms brand. In business for eight years, Crop One claims to be the oldest vertical farmer in North America, in terms of continuous commercial production.
Crop One grows a wide variety of leafy produce, including lettuce, arugula, basil, and spinach. From its location in Millis, Massachusetts, it supplies sellers within a radius of approximately 100 miles, with a presence in more than 35 grocery stores in the Northeast, according to chief executive officer Craig Ratajcyzk.
The location was chosen to cut down on the large volumes of produce that are typically shipped into the Boston area from California, Arizona, Texas, and South and Central America. “Those are really long supply chains,” Ratajcyzk says. “Right now, we’re within an hour’s drive of all the markets we serve.” Crop One also sources its seed stock locally, he adds, although he acknowledges the need to diversify supply in order to reduce the risk of supply-chain disruptions.
Indoor farming allows Crop One to grow to produce all year round, Ratajcyzk says. Currently, its output stands at around three tons a day, serving 10 customers in the Boston area and an overseas account that in turn sells to some 20 retailers.
The company has big ambitions to expand its production and marketing reach, and Ratajcyzk sees no problem in scaling up. Currently, he says, “the whole CEA [controlled environmental agriculture] industry represents a small fraction of the global demand market.” But recent storms and cold weather in large portions of the U.S. have highlighted the need for a method of farming that isn’t susceptible to the whims of Mother Nature.
“The industry is growing substantially,” Ratajcyzk declares, with producers increasingly being drawn to a method of farming that dramatically boosts crop yield within a limited space.
The technology can even extend to fruit-bearing trees. “A traditional orange tree maybe 15 or 20 feet,” Ratajcyzk says. “Why not a 10-foot tree producing twice as many oranges?”
The chief downside of vertical farming at the moment is one of cost. The price of an initial building containing the equivalent of a 60-hectare farm has been estimated at $100 million. Expenses include heavy energy consumption for supplemental lighting, temperature and humidity controls, fertilizer, and maintenance of proper carbon dioxide levels.
A Cornell University study from 2014 called vertical farms “pie in the sky,” estimating that a single loaf of bread containing wheat grown in a vertical farm would cost $27. Current economics would therefore appear to limit vertical farming to high-end products, although producers are banking that costs will plummet as the technology catches on. The net environmental advantages should also serve to boost its popularity in the coming years.
Vertical farming is “small, but growing every day,” says Ratajcyzk. “It’s a difficult model to establish, but if you’ve been around for five years-plus, then you have a higher probability of success.” He’s hoping for federal, state, and local support of the fledgling technique.
“I can’t really think of a downside to this industry,” he says.
Lead photo: Photo: Bloomberg
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This Urban Pop-Up Farm is Powered by Coffee Grounds
Melbourne roaster Cirrus Fine Coffee grows vegetables and herbs in a tiny garden, thanks to the help of coffee waste.
By Audrey Bourget
17 JAN 2019 - 1:20 PM UPDATED 17 JAN 2019 - 1:56 PM
The pop-up farm on Cirrus Fine Coffee’s parking lot is a little green oasis in the industrial area of Port Melbourne.
“We have heritage varieties of tomatoes, corn, zucchini, pumpkin, spring onion, beetroot, rainbow chard, spinach, silverbeet, flowers to attract beneficial insects and also a range of herbs like chives, basil, oregano and coriander,” says Brendan Condon. And all of this only takes up two parking spaces.
Condon is the director of sister companies Cirrus Fine Coffee, Biofilta and Australian Ecosystems, which have collaborated to develop super-efficient compact pop-up farms. “We often think that we have overcrowded cities, but if you look at them from the lens of urban farming, we have huge amounts of space. We can flip cities into becoming super-efficient food growers,” he says.
These beans deliver more than a caffeine hit.
From landfill to compost
Each year, caffeine-loving Aussies produce around 75 000 tonnes of coffee waste, most of it ending up in landfill where it contributes to the production of methane, a greenhouse gas. But coffee grounds don’t have to end up there; they can be composted and used to produce food.
Cirrus Fine Coffee’s own pop-up garden uses a mix of composted coffee grounds (rich in minerals and nitrogen), husks from the roastery (a good source of carbon), food scraps and a small amount of manure, to help produce around 300 kilos of food per year. With the World Health Organisation recommending adults consume a minimum of 146 kilos of fresh fruits and veggies per year, it means that one of these pop-up farms could provide enough for two people for a whole year.
The Biofilta wicking (self-watering) garden beds are easy to install and low maintenance. The design holds enough liquid to water the garden for a week in summer and a month in winter.
“We want people to take advantage of the abundant resources for urban farming and to engage with it, so we improve nutrition and health, and divert waste from landfill,” says Condon.
Cirrus Fine Coffee is committed to sustainability in more ways than one. Its coffee beans are ethically sourced, the brand's packaging is biodegradable and its offices run on clean energy.
It's also partnered with Reground, an organisation that goes to cafes to pick up coffee grounds and transport them to community gardens and pop-up farms.
“We all need to work together,” says Ninna K. Larsen, founder of Reground. “We work at changing the system rather than just collecting coffee. Coffee is just a great conversation starter. It’s about getting people talking about what organic waste can do, instead of going to landfill. We can grow food with it.”
Condon would like to see cafes and people around Australia embrace urban farming. “If you have a cafe where you recycle coffee grounds to grow food, people will want to go there and support that business,” he says. “Hopefully, in a few years, it will be common practice.”
Cockroaches Are Becoming Big Business In China
Cockroaches are being used to get rid of food scraps and to feed pigs.
Thomas Suen and Ryan Woo Reuters - Text
(Reuters) - In the near pitch-dark, you can hear them before you see them - millions of cockroaches scuttling and fluttering across stacks of wooden boards as they devour food scraps by the tonne in a novel form of urban waste disposal.
The air is warm and humid - just as cockroaches like it - to ensure the colonies keep their health and voracious appetites.
Expanding Chinese cities are generating more food waste than they can accommodate in landfills, and cockroaches could be a way to get rid of hills of food scraps, providing nutritious food for livestock when the bugs eventually die and, some say, cures for stomach illness and beauty treatments.
On the outskirts of Jinan, capital of eastern Shandong province, a billion cockroaches are being fed with 50 tonnes of kitchen waste a day - the equivalent in weight to seven adult elephants.
The waste arrives before daybreak at the plant run by Shandong Qiaobin Agricultural Technology Co, where it is fed through pipes to cockroaches in their cells.
Shandong Qiaobin plans to set up three more such plants next year, aiming to process a third of the kitchen waste produced by Jinan, home to about seven million people.
A nationwide ban on using food waste as pig feed due to African swine fever outbreaks is also spurring the growth of the cockroach industry.
“Cockroaches are a bio-technological pathway for the converting and processing of kitchen waste,” said Liu Yusheng, president of Shandong Insect Industry Association.
Cockroaches are also a good source of protein for pigs and other livestock.
“It’s like turning trash into resources,” said Shandong Qiaobin chairwoman Li Hongyi. “ESSENCE OF COCKROACH”
In a remote village in Sichuan, Li Bingcai, 47, has similar ideas. Li, formerly a mobile phone vendor, has invested a million yuan ($146,300) in cockroaches, which he sells to pig farms and fisheries as feed and to drug companies as medicinal ingredients.
His farm now has 3.4 million cockroaches.
“People think it’s strange that I do this kind of business,” Li said. “It has great economic value, and my goal is to lead other villagers to prosperity if they follow my lead.”
His village has two farms. Li’s goal is to create 20.
Elsewhere in Sichuan, a company called Gooddoctor is rearing six billion cockroaches.
“The essence of cockroach is good for curing oral and peptic ulcers, skin wounds and even stomach cancer,” said Wen Jianguo, manager of Gooddoctor’s cockroach facility.
Researchers are also looking into using cockroach extract in beauty masks, diet pills and even hair-loss treatments.
At Gooddoctor, when cockroaches reach the end of their lifespan of about six months, they are blasted by steam, washed and dried, before being sent to a huge nutrient extraction tank.
Asked about the chance of the cockroaches escaping, Wen said that would be worthy of a disaster movie but that he has taken precautions.
“We have a moat filled with water and fish,” he said. “If the cockroaches escape, they will fall into the moat and the fish will eat them all.”
Italy Among virtuous Nations Against Food Waste
Italy Among virtuous Nations Against Food Waste
How much food do we waste every year? The BCFN foundation invites us to reflect, on the occasion of the Italian National Day Against Food Waste, held on February 5, every year.
Across the world, food waste costs 750 billion euros per year, that is almost twice the Italian GDP for 2017. This figure is even scarier if we translate it into kilograms. Focusing on Italy, we discover that household waste "weighs" 145kg per person each year, which is equivalent to 1,000 small apples (100g each) or 1,500 pasta dishes (circa 100g ) or just under 750 tinned beans (200g tins), much more than the average consumption of a 3-member household. But waste does not just come from households.
In Italy, the fruits and vegetables binned by retailers waste over 73 million cubic meters of water (used to produce them), that is 36.5 billion 2-liter bottles. According to the Food Sustainability Index, the research developed by The Economist Intelligence Unit with BCFN, Italy is scoring significantly in its fight against food waste, and with the help of national policies against industrial food loss and waste, such as the Gadda Law, it is 4th in the ranking of virtuous countries tackling food loss and waste.
1) Make a reasoned list: before shopping, check what you really need, make a list - and stick to it - remember that wasting food means wasting money
2) When you are cooking, keep an eye on quantities and only cook what you can eat
3) Check your labels: always monitor the 'eat before' dates
4) When storing food in the fridge, put the short-life food in front and store in the freezer what you are not likely to eat soon
5) Recipes against food waste: don't bin leftovers and food waste, they can become new creative dishes
Industrial/Organic Raises $1.3 Million to Ferment Your Food Waste Into Sellable Stuff
The latest is Industrial/Organic, a Brooklyn and soon-to-be Newark-based company which just raised a seed round of $1.3 million led by hometown venture firm Brooklyn Bridge Ventures.
Industrial/Organic Raises $1.3 Million to Ferment Your Food Waste Into Sellable Stuff
The Brooklyn startup's raise is backed by hometown VC Brooklyn Bridge Ventures.
By Tyler Woods / REPORTER
Urban farming. (Image via Smart Cities NYC)
Nature, man. It’s a powerful force.
We don’t get too much contact with it here in Brooklyn, but that hasn’t stopped a host of city startups from trying to rethink our relationship with the soil.
The latest is Industrial/Organic, a Brooklyn and soon-to-be Newark-based company which just raised a seed round of $1.3 million led by hometown venture firm Brooklyn Bridge Ventures.
“When I funded the company, it was little more than a science project in a garage in Brooklyn and soon, they’ll open up a waste processing facility in Newark—one that didn’t require tens of millions of dollars to setup and also won’t pollute the local neighborhood with odor,” wrote Brooklyn Bridge Ventures founder Charlie O’Donnell in a post last week. “It won’t throw off dangerous gases, and yes, the process will make a profit.”
According to O’Donnell, the company’s main products will be organic fertilizers and cleaning products.
Industrial/Organic works by a process of rapid fermentation of food waste, the stuff you scrape off your plate before washing it or the eggshells you toss in the trash can.
“Food waste is 75% moisture, which we draw out in a multi-step process following a rapid biological digestion that sterilizes and preserves organic matter,” according to the company. “This byproduct is first used for energy generation and then cleaned for reuse. We see a future where this reclaimed water is substituted for agricultural and industrial use. The leftover solids are processed into an organic fertilizer that is microbially active, providing nutrients, probiotics and organic matter to soils.”
Pretty neat.