By Michelle Pelletier Marshall, Global AgInvesting Media

They are the company that “gives a cluck about fighting food waste”. They are Do Good Foods, and they have created a circular system that recaptures some of the 43 billion pounds of healthy grocery store food that gets thrown out annually. How do they do this? They retrieve surplus grocery food after any community donations have occurred and upcycle it to its next best usage, which based upon the EPA, is into a dried animal feed. This healthy, nutritious feed is then used as a component of a chicken’s diet, which in turn creates the first verified carbon-reduced chicken to hit the retail market.

This solution also helps address the moral, monetary, and environmental issues surrounding food waste and in creating a closed-loop agriculture system. It is unbelievable that nearly 40 percent of the food we grow is thrown away – food that is valued at more than $1 trillion, or 1.3 percent of the total GDP in the U.S. alone. Food waste is a huge contributor of methane gas emissions, which are 25 percent more potent at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. The Do Good Foods infrastructure platform upcycles much of this surplus grocery food, and will be launching Do Good Chicken, their first product, this spring with some of the largest retailers as partners in creating the next iteration of the food system: a closed-loop, carbon-reduced food system.

GAI News spoke to Co-CEO and Co-founder Justin Kamine to get more details and learn more about the growth and investment opportunities therein.

1). Do Good Foods was formed just last year. Please explain the genesis for its founding, including backing from the Kamine Family, founders of the Kamine Development Corporation, which has built, owned, and operated more than $3.5 billion in infrastructure for 40 years.

The risk to our food system currently posed by climate change is something that needs to be addressed now. We don’t have time to wait 10-20 years. Our planet is getting hotter, resources are decreasing, population is increasing, and by many accounts we are quickly running out of time to reverse the damage that’s been done. One of the biggest problems is food waste. With 40 percent of the food grown in the U.S. thrown away, this means that each year, almost 146 million tons of food ends up in landfills where it creates potent greenhouse gases.

Do Good Foods was created to provide a scalable and immediate solution to solving food waste. Our ‘closed loop system’ takes surplus grocery food and turns it into a nutrient-dense, consistent animal feed. We then empower consumers to be a part of the solution with products that they know and love. What is exciting is that each Do Good Chicken saves approximately four pounds of surplus groceries from being thrown away, thus reducing nearly three pounds of greenhouse gases (CO₂e). So we can all have a delicious meal while also doing good for the planet!

Overall, the concept of upcycling food to animal feed has been around for decades. We’re leveraging this practice and applying our family’s experience in building and scaling infrastructure across the country to create a food waste solution at scale that could work with the biggest companies across the U.S. to help solve this problem over the next five years. Most importantly is that this solution is both economically viable and better for our planet, which enables us to create a win-win-win for the retailers, the environment, and consumers.

2). What is the company’s driving mission, and its growth trajectory?  

Do Good Foods is a mission-driven brand built to have real-time environmental and business impact. We’re aiming to put a major dent in food waste across the country – and if less than 1 out of every 5 pieces of chicken we all ate was a Do Good Chicken, we would be able to solve food waste from supermarkets across the U.S.!

Our goal is to convert as much grocery surplus that we can into a nutrient-dense, consistent animal feed that can be an added benefit to a healthy, balanced diet for the animal. We look to accomplish this by building a Do Good Foods facility in every major metropolitan area to upcycle the surplus grocery food – up to the extent it exists after any community donations occur – into its next best usage, which is animal feed.

Do Good Foods also believes we are all in this together. This is a mission we all need to be accountable for and we want to empower consumers to be a part of the solution – addressing the demand for more environmentally friendly food options that are cost-efficient and accessible. We can now provide similarly-priced products that they know and love, that are now doing good for both our plate and our planet. We believe Do Good Foods will help lead this revolution and bring real sustainability to scale.

3). I see that your first production facility is in Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania, which will have the capacity to save 60,000 tons of food waste annually from going to landfills. This location is rather off the beaten path – what were the incentives or drivers (geographic/demographic/population density?) for choosing that location for your first facility? 

Fairless Hills is within 70 miles of both Philadelphia and New York City, so that location allows us to reach a tremendous number of supermarkets within the right logistic radius. We are picking up from about 450 supermarkets within the region and then turning it into animal feed the very next day. Beyond location, it was also the ideal building size for us, and we wanted to bring great jobs to a growing local area.

4). Do Good Foods secured a $169M investment from asset manager Nuveen in October 2021. How has this funding been used, and what does the future hold for additional investment opportunities in the company?

That funding has gone into the building, operation, and growth of the first facility in Pennsylvania, along with scaling the Do Good Foods team and preparing the platform for the upcoming launch of Do Good Chicken this April. We are very excited by our partnership with Nuveen and look forward to continued growth across the country to help solve food waste and combat climate change.

ABOUT JUSTIN KAMINE

Justin Kamine is a planet-forward entrepreneur who co-founded Do Good Foods with his brother Matthew to combat climate change by fighting food waste. The Kamine brothers’ company builds on the family’s 40-year heritage of solving macro environmental problems through building large infrastructure solutions.

Do Good Foods is yet another example of how Kamine combines his passion for the planet with good business sense to build sustainable, scalable systems that can drive meaningful change. His track record has earned him the Forbes 30U30 award for Food, ranked him as one of the 50 Most Impactful Entrepreneurs in the U.S., and earned him the Clean Tech Equity Award presented by the Prince of Monaco.

Justin graduated Lafayette College in 2011, with a major in Environmental Public Policy and Economics.

 

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– Michelle Pelletier Marshall is contributing editor and author for HighQuest Partners’ GAI News and Oilseed & Grain News, and managing editor for its WIA Today blog. Additionally, she is the company’s Senior PR/Media Manager. She can be reached at marshall@highquestpartners.com.