Putting Wasted Food to Good use

THE U.S. WASTES AS MUCH AS 40 PERCENT, or 133 billion pounds, of its food supply a year, according to USDA estimates. There are many reasons, from food spoiling during production to consumers tossing uneaten items from their fridge. But a shockingly large amount—a third of all edible produce— happens at the very start of the chain, on the farm.

Christine Moseley is out to change that, via her company Full Harvest, a digital marketplace that connects farmers with food and beverage companies that can use their surplus and imperfect produce. Moseley was inspired to find a solution to food waste nearly a decade ago, while working

as the head of strategic products and business development for cold-pressed juice company, Organic Avenue. She recalls standing calf-deep in a field of romaine leaves that were about to be churned under because they were not the perfect center hearts that grocery stores and manufacturers typically wanted, even though her employer was just going to process it into a liquid anyway. The experience bothered her so much, she vowed to find a way to put that excess or oddly-shaped produce to use.

Initially her idea was to use the cast-off produce to make affordable green juices and other plantbased foods. But after eight months of trying, she couldn’t find the right supplier, which led to an epiphany: The bigger business opportunity was in becoming the supplier herself.

Cash flow and financing were challenges. During the two-and-a-half years it took Moseley to get Full Harvest off the ground, she lived off a $75,000 stake—$25,000 from savings and $50,000 earned via side hustles like renting out her car and helping students write their MBA essays. “I was the cliche,” says Moseley. “I lived in a basement eating rice and beans and peanut butter sandwiches, leveraging a credit card for business needs. I literally didn’t know how I was going to pay my next rent bill. I got my first investor money right in the nick of time.”

Since that initial infusion of cash from an angel investor and the winnings from some pitch competitions, backers have poured $40 million into Full Harvest. But they weren’t the only ones she needed to convince to come on board. She also had to win over farmers, many of whom were still relying on fax machines and paper transactions to do business, by making her platform as “low friction and high value as possible.”

Moseley didn’t let naysayers asking why she wanted to sell trash sway her resolve; instead she found the desire to prove them wrong motivational. “My dad trained me young to believe that: ‘at first, they think you’re crazy, then they accept it, then they don’t remember it was any other way.’ This is the process of true disruption: It means you are onto something if they say you are crazy.”

Today, big name food and beverage manufacturers, like Danone, Mondelēz and Suja, turn to Moseley’s company to source the fruits and vegetables they turn into grocery staples like juice and yogurt, and large-scale farming operations like Lakeside Organic Gardens and Church Brothers Farms use it to offload more of their crops and increase profits by up to 12 percent.

“We’ve sold over 75 million pounds of surplus and imperfect produce, and heard from some of our farms that they’ve had some of their best years financially after working with us,” says Moseley. “Knowing that we’re making an impact both on the environment and to the bottom line of our suppliers and buyers is our proudest accomplishment.”

“THIS is the PROCESS of

TRUE DISRUPTION: IT MEANS YOU are ONTO SOMETHING IF THEY SAY YOU are CRAZY.”