EP19: Fighting food waste by selling delicious meals for 50% off - Food for All

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FUN FACT

Food for All got its start on Kickstarter - successfully raising over $50,000 to fund the initial development and launch of the marketplace!

FOUNDERS

Sabine Valenga, David Sánchez, and Victor Carreño

LAUNCHED

2016

Funding

$200,000 from Urban-X and Kickstarter

HQ

New York, NY

Food for All is a marketplace for surplus food, where restaurants sell their surplus meals for at least 50% off to users that go pick them up. Restaurants get to generate extra revenue and reach new clients, users get delicious meals at much lower prices, and we all contribute to a greener planet with less food waste.

Problem

Restaurants, caterers, and cafeterias throw away a total 43 billion pounds of food every year, amounting to roughly $160 billion in waste every year. Each restaurant alone throws away an estimated 25,000 to 100,000 pounds of food per year. On top of this, food waste is also a major driver of climate change-as it decomposes in landfills, it releases methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

Solution

Food for All solves this by connecting users with local restaurants who have unsold food, and in return, restaurants sell it for 50-80% off. Not only a food waste solution, it’s also a food insecurity solution- enabling access to high-quality food for people who typically can’t afford it.

Episode Brief

Sabine Valenga, Food For All’s Co-Founder and CMO, joins Peter on this week’s episode to discuss:

  • The food waste problem and its affect on climate

  • Launching a successful Kickstarter

  • Building early supply and demand

  • Solving food insecurity at scale

  • The promise and failures of food delivery

  • Lightning Round:

    • You were founded in Boston and moved HQ to NYC. Where do you prefer operating more and why?

    • You’ve gone through several “incubators” - TechStars, MassChallenge, UrbanX. Why this route? Advice to founders exploring this pathway vs other financing options?

    • What’s the most interesting climate-oriented company you’ve come across?

    • Let’s assume all the stars align - what does the next two years look like for FFA?

Credits

HOST

Peter Levin

PRODUCTION

Dan Mahoney

MUSIC

Eddie Knuckles

Peter Levin