New partnership to create indoor farm nutrients from seafood

CruzFoam, which recently onboarded actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Ashton Kutcher as investors and board advisors, produces green and sustainable packaging material from shrimp shells that are discarded by the seafood industry. The partnership will enable Re-Nuble to integrate some of this seafood waste into its farm-nutrient production cycle.

"We felt [CruzFoam] would be a good partner because they're very aligned from a circularity perspective," Re-Nuble's founder and CEO Tinia Pina told AFN. She praised the company in particular for its transparency and respect for processes.

That kind of alignment is critical for accelerating circular, waste-to-value systems, where early-stage startups like Re-Nuble and CruzFoam recognize that they can be only one part of the solution. 

Pina realized the extent of the food waste problem volunteering for social support nonprofit New York Cares in New York City. The city was spending tens of millions of dollars annually to dispose of food waste that Pina recognized could have numerous other uses if up-cycled or composted. She started Re-Nuble and bootstrapped years of research and development into how to use food waste for indoor farming media. 

"Our team had a strong conviction that there was going to be a shift towards more indoor production because of what we're experiencing now," she explained. "The high temperatures, the erratic weather patterns, things that are limiting soil production. We really were a little bit ahead of the curve back in 2015."

Fork to farm 

Re-Nuble sources its feedstock from wholesale produce distributors as well as waste haulers and logistics providers. It also works with local companies and organizations to acquire their food waste.

The waste then goes through a proprietary process to be transformed into  nutrients.

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Written By: Lucy Ngige

Photo: Indoor farming with Re-Nuble's sustainable grow-media | Credit: Re-Nuble

Source: AgFunder News