Food Cycle Science CEO Bradley Crepeau (left) and Power Sustainable Rios managing partner Jonathan Belair pose with foodcyclers in Ottawa on June 18.Dave Chang/The Globe and Mail
A manufacturer of food waste recycling machines has an eye on the future of the kitchen, developing a device that dries leftovers without producing bad odors.
In an attempt to get households to recycle kitchen scraps, the main selling point is that the appliance can turn food waste overnight into nutrient-rich material that can be mixed into garden soil.
Ottawa-based Food Cycle Science (FCS), which promotes the FoodCycler brand with distributors such as Vita-Mix, is a leader in the emerging global waste recycling industry.
Marketers of food-recycling machines tout their ability to largely avoid that “nasty factor” by dumping kitchen waste into a specially designed, bladed, removable bucket before it can get slimy and nasty.
With the push of a button, the motor starts and the machine dries the ingredients in the bucket and crushes them into less than one-tenth of their original volume.
“Our enemy is landfills, and if you're sending waste to a landfill, we urge you to consider the Food Cycler as a potential solution,” said FCS CEO Bradley Crepeau, who co-founded the company with Murray Arthur in 2011, and the first FCS machine came on the market in 2017.
Newer models of food cyclers with improved grinding technology leave a substance at the bottom of the bucket that resembles coffee grounds or dirt.
In the longer term, the hope is that having the machine up and running will make households more aware of the inevitable piles of kitchen scraps – banana peels, mouldy tomatoes, chicken bones and wilted lettuce – and lead to behavioural changes that lead to better meal planning and minimising waste.
Other appliances vying for consumer support include the Lomi brand from Kelowna, British Columbia-based Open Mind Development Corp. The FoodCycler and Lomi are countertop appliances about the size of a bread maker.
The Mill product, made by Mill Industries, Inc., based in San Bruno, California, is a large household appliance about the size of an indoor trash can.
Food recycling machines remove the moisture and create a type of fertilizer that is valuable and contains nutrients, but it does not have the microorganisms found in composters. So the residue that remains at the bottom of the machine's bucket is not compost, but can be used as a “soil conditioner” to improve garden growth.
When food waste ends up in landfills, the organic matter decomposes, producing powerful methane emissions that contribute to climate change.
FCS, which has its headquarters and innovation lab in Ottawa, manufactures the FoodCycler through two contractors in Asia.
The company received funding last month from Power Sustainable Rios, a unit of Montreal-based financial conglomerate Power Corporation of Canada Ltd. The agri-food private-equity fund declined to comment on how much it is investing in FCS, but it aims to invest $25 million to $50 million in each of the companies it selects, and could take majority or minority stakes.
“This is the ability to really mitigate the risk of sending food waste to landfill,” said Jonathan Belair, managing partner at Power Sustainable Lios. “By processing food waste through the FoodCycler, we are essentially avoiding methane emissions.”
Some apartment complexes don't have an easy way to dispose of food waste, so FCS has tried to find a niche in metropolitan areas that have both landfills and composting systems.
The company is also eager to expand into smaller Canadian municipalities and take advantage of opportunities in major international markets looking for better ways to handle waste. FCS has distributors in countries such as South Korea, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand.
Over the past two years, smaller Canadian municipalities have embraced partnerships with FCS.
Many municipalities are looking for new ways to keep organic matter — rotting fruit and vegetables, leftovers left in the fridge — out of landfills, subsidizing residents' purchases of countertop grinders.
In some areas, expensive methane capture systems produce gas that is sold as “renewable natural gas,” but they cannot completely eliminate methane leakage.
FCS has partnered with about 140 municipalities across Canada, including about 90 in Ontario, to help make its indoor appliances more widely available in homes. Municipalities across the country include Nelson, British Columbia; Kirkland Lake, Ontario; and Corner Brook, Newfoundland.
The modern kitchen has a decidedly different appliance that appeals to a wider range of consumers. For example, air fryers sell for $80 to $250 a piece at various retailers. Air fryers have grown in popularity in recent years, providing the satisfying and guilty pleasure of french fries and other delicious foods.
Food recycling machines, by contrast, are a niche product because they're expensive and not all that common in modern kitchens; modern versions are sold online, typically for $500 to $800 for a countertop model, depending on size. Proponents of the technology argue that keeping waste out of landfills is a good deed, as households are making a small but significant contribution to reducing methane gas and helping save the planet.
While regular curbside collection of organic waste is provided in cities, the high cost of building facilities to process organics has many rural areas considering alternatives.
The recycling process starts with placing kitchen waste into a special bucket, which in the case of the FoodCycler has a capacity of up to five litres.
Depending on the settings, the machine takes between four and nine hours to heat, dry, and grind the ingredients, all the while a carbon filter minimizes odors.
Chicken bones are fine, but a warning not to put in cow bones as they are too thick and will cause blockages. The machine can complement traditional composting systems or curbside organics collection, or provide a solution where municipal composting systems don't exist.
Industry experts say food recycling machines could be useful for rural residents who want to keep bears and other wildlife from sniffing around their homes, and for urban residents who want to keep wily raccoons from getting into their curbside organic food bins.
Food-recycling machines are a good idea because many smaller Canadian municipalities don't offer curbside collection of organic waste, says Calvin Laquin, a research scientist and director of the Circular Innovation Hub at York University in Toronto.
“I think where machines like the Food Cycler have an important role to play is in rural and northern communities, or in apartment buildings, where curbside organics collection isn't available,” Dr Lacan said.
“If we want to get the most out of our environmental investments, we should be doing more to keep food waste out of landfills.”
It's unclear how long it will take for food recycling machines to become widely adopted, but history shows that change in the kitchen is inevitable.
“Think about what a kitchen looked like 100 years ago,” said Dana McCauley, CEO of the Canadian Food Innovation Network, which fosters food industry collaboration.
Considering that municipalities are looking for innovative ways to curb the various costs involved in disposing of kitchen and backyard trash, plastics and various waste materials, every effort helps to keep food waste out of landfills, she said.
McCauley envisions a future where technological advances and ingenuity can allow people in smart kitchens to play a key role in reducing food waste.
“I believe that in the future, our kitchen operations will be significantly different and much more energy efficient,” she said. “Waste disposal, like landfills, creates costs for municipalities and problems for the environment.”
