How One Company Dealt With Food Waste
Posted by Core Mini Bins on February 8th, 2017
Baldor, a specialty foods/produce distribution company, wants you to know that things like green-bean stem and carrot tops are not garbage. The company actually refers to these as sparcs, which is scraps spelt backwards.
Baldor’s Mission To Change Food
The company wants people to understand that these sparcs are generally just as worthwhile as the rest of the fruit or vegetable. Essentially, this is an effort by Baldor to rename an aspect of food that is often disregarded for the simple fact that it doesn’t have a very pleasant name. It is difficult to say whether or not this venture will be a long-term success, but the results have been fascinating, not to mention encouraging, thus far.
The company hopes that the rebranding will change the relationship people have with their food, particularly with the parts of food that are often disregarded for no real reason.
Changing The Way We Think About Food
Baldor is a company that is well-known for providing food items like caviar or olive oil to various companies in the food service industry for both the Mid Atlantic and the Northeast. Thanks to some of their initiatives, the company no longer creates any organic food waste. The Fresh Cuts plan is a good example of this. Offering pre-slices, diced, or otherwise prepared veggies, the program utilizes all of its sparcs for human or animal consumption. The company actually refers to their sparcs as SparCs, with the “C” designed to make the phrase pop.
Skin and tops from carrots, tops from strawberries, pieces of watermelon, assorted fruits, and miscellaneous veggies are sold at thirty cents per pound to a D.C.-based company known as Misfit Juicery. The company cold-presses “ugly” fruits and veggies into juices. Additional items are sold to a NY-based restaurant known as Haven’s Kitchen, which is also a cooking school. They are known for broths, sauces, and soups.
In addition to all this, Baldor is still looking for new products to share with the world, sourced entirely from their sparcs. For example, the company is currently hoping to release a dried veggie blend, similar to bouillon, to the world at large in 2017.
Mango pits and cantaloupe rinds are two examples of sparcs that are not terribly useful to human beings. However, these can still be used by animals as a comprehensive food source. A waste to water system takes care of anything that is still remaining by the end. The company points to two major benefits in these practices. In the first place, selling sparcs to various business interests allows the company to turn a profit on the “waste” they create. At the same time, it also keeps these things out of the landfills. Savings are also being enjoyed on elimination, since these things are now being repurposed to serve an entirely different function.
The company hopes to be a source of inspiration. They are particularly hopeful that people will begin to see the potential in sparcs. They would love to see waste levels go down to a significant degree around the world.
