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

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