{"id":17968,"date":"2016-11-18T14:07:42","date_gmt":"2016-11-18T19:07:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/spoiler-alert-at-the-end-technology-defeats-food-waste\/"},"modified":"2016-11-18T14:10:51","modified_gmt":"2016-11-18T19:10:51","slug":"spoiler-alert-at-the-end-technology-defeats-food-waste","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/spoiler-alert-at-the-end-technology-defeats-food-waste\/","title":{"rendered":"Spoiler Alert: At the End, Technology Defeats Food Waste"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Technology is making it easier for businesses to track their inventory and make smarter decisions about where it should go and how it can be utilized most effectively. One of the more exciting applications of this capability is the potential that it offers to the massive problem of food waste. Each year the United States spends an estimated $218 Billion on costs associated with food that is simply never eaten.<a href=\"#_edn1\" name=\"_ednref1\">[i]<\/a> Boston-based startup \u2018Spoiler Alert\u2019 sees this extraordinary wastefulness as an untapped opportunity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Who is impacted by food waste?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Food Industry: <\/strong>Food is lost at every step of the supply chain \u2013 farms, storage, processing, distribution, and retail. Losses occur due to the difficulty of forecasting demand, food safety scares, labor shortages, unmarketable yield, refrigeration disruptions, and many other reasons.<a href=\"#_edn2\" name=\"_ednref2\">[ii]<\/a> Because of these losses, the food industry forfeits many billions of dollars each year.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Consumers<\/strong>: Approximately 25% of food purchased by American families is thrown out due to spoilage, confusion over expiration dates, and lack of awareness. This amounts to approximately $1400-$2300 in annual waste for households.<a href=\"#_edn3\" name=\"_ednref3\">[iii]<\/a><\/li>\n<li><strong>Food-insecure Households:<\/strong>7% of US householders experience food insecurity at some point during the year. This amounts to 15.8 million people who weren\u2019t confident that they had the resources necessary to meet their basic needs.<a href=\"#_edn4\" name=\"_ednref4\">[iv]<\/a> This waste makes food less affordable for these families since the expectation of excess is built into the cost of food.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Environment:<\/strong> Approximately 52 million tons of food are sent to landfills each year.<a href=\"#_edn5\" name=\"_ednref5\">[v]<\/a> Decaying food waste generates methane which is a greenhouse gas 21 times stronger than CO2.<a href=\"#_edn6\" name=\"_ednref6\">[vi]<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What is Spoiler Alert?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Spoiler Alert seeks to combat this problem by offering 2 core software solutions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Marketplace <\/strong>\u2013 By connecting entities in the food business with those who want it, the Spoiler Alert Marketplace provides a mechanism to prevent spoilage by generating an accessible secondary market for at-risk food. Food businesses and farms can create easy listings for food that would otherwise go to waste. \u2018Buyers\u2019 like non-profits can then log-in and easily indicate interest in a particular offering. Once the transaction is complete, the system creates a report that allows the food business to set goals, easily quantify and share success, and provides email documentation of the transaction for tax-benefit tracking and accounting.<a href=\"#_edn7\" name=\"_ednref7\">[vii]<\/a> Per one non-profit recipient of donations through the tool, \u201cSpoiler Alert connects us to donations we might not otherwise know about.\u201d<a href=\"#_edn8\" name=\"_ednref8\">[viii]<\/a> To fund operations, Spoiler Alert takes a cut of any sales that are made through its platform.<a href=\"#_edn9\" name=\"_ednref9\">[ix]<\/a><\/li>\n<li><strong>Enterprise<\/strong> \u2013 The enterprise platform is designed as an inventory management tool which helps businesses track and manage unsold food items. The core customers for this feature are wholesale distributors, food manufacturers, and grocery retailers. It provides item-level tracking functionality for corporate food donations, accounting tools to calculate tax deductions, and a tracker for financial, social, and environmental metrics. The tool should incentivize food businesses to think consciously about their food waste and easily set related goals so they can share results with customers and other interested stakeholders.<a href=\"#_edn10\" name=\"_ednref10\">[x]<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>How\u2019s it going?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Spoiler Alert currently has 200 organizations using their service throughout New England and they are growing at 15% each month. They recently received a $2.5 Million seed investment to continue to expand operations.<a href=\"#_edn11\" name=\"_ednref11\">[xi]<\/a> The company has been helped by a commercial food-waste ban which passed in Massachusetts back in 2014. Businesses that generate more than 1 ton of waste each week are subject to the ban which makes the Spoiler Alert Marketplace an excellent resource for the 1,700 companies seeking to comply with the policy.<a href=\"#_edn12\" name=\"_ednref12\">[xii]<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s next?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>At this point in its lifecycle, Spoiler Alert is focused on the right things \u2013 making the necessary investments to drive adoption, iterating on the services they offer, and proving the viability of the business. Though it\u2019s clear that Spoiler Alert\u2019s online tools will have value for many food businesses and non-profits, here are a few things they should consider as they grow:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The revenue strategy of taking a cut of sales from the Marketplace works if there are many paid transactions flowing through the platform \u2013 since many of the \u2018sales\u2019 will be donations they should be wary to ensure the transaction volume will be enough to cover the costs of operations and generate profits.<\/li>\n<li>They should consider a plan to ease the logistics associated with deliveries rather than relying on each party to pick-up and drop-off.<\/li>\n<li>While the platform helps mitigate the loss associated with food waste, it doesn\u2019t address the root causes. They should use the data they obtain and publish it for the industry so that institutions can have a granular understanding about the greatest sources of waste. Ultimately, their goal should be to put themselves out of business.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>789 words<\/p>\n<p>Image Source<a href=\"#_edn13\" name=\"_ednref13\">[xiii]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref1\" name=\"_edn1\">[i]<\/a> &#8220;Welcome to ReFED.&#8221; Food Waste: ReFED | Rethink Food Waste. Accessed November 18, 2016. http:\/\/www.refed.com\/?sort=economic-value-per-ton.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref2\" name=\"_edn2\">[ii]<\/a> Gunders, Dana. &#8220;Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill.&#8221; NRDC. Accessed November 18, 2016. https:\/\/www.nrdc.org\/sites\/default\/files\/wasted-food-IP.pdf.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref3\" name=\"_edn3\">[iii]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref4\" name=\"_edn4\">[iv]<\/a> &#8220;Key Statistics and Graphics.&#8221; USDA ERS. Accessed November 18, 2016. http:\/\/www.ers.usda.gov\/topics\/food-nutrition-assistance\/food-security-in-the-us\/key-statistics-graphics.aspx.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref5\" name=\"_edn4\">[v]<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"#_ednref5\" name=\"_edn5\"><\/a>&#8220;Welcome to ReFED.&#8221; Food Waste: ReFED | Rethink Food Waste. Accessed November 18, 2016. http:\/\/www.refed.com\/?sort=economic-value-per-ton.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref6\" name=\"_edn6\">[vi]<\/a> &#8220;Information Sources.&#8221; USDA Office of the Chief Economist. Accessed November 18, 2016. http:\/\/www.usda.gov\/oce\/foodwaste\/sources.htm.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref7\" name=\"_edn7\">[vii]<\/a> &#8220;Watch the Demo Video.&#8221; Spoiler Alert. Accessed November 18, 2016. http:\/\/info.foodspoileralert.com\/watch-product-demo?submissionGuid=25fb3ab0-2d9f-4313-aa27-c9ddc39e5518.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref8\" name=\"_edn8\">[viii]<\/a> &#8220;Non-profits.&#8221; Spoiler Alert. Accessed November 18, 2016. https:\/\/www.foodspoileralert.com\/nonprofits.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref9\" name=\"_edn9\">[ix]<\/a> Newberry, Laura. &#8220;MIT Grads Launch Online Marketplace Spoiler Alert to Connect Nonprofits with Surplus Food.&#8221; Masslive.com. 2015. Accessed November 18, 2016. http:\/\/www.masslive.com\/news\/index.ssf\/2015\/11\/mit_grads_launch_online_market.html.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref10\" name=\"_edn10\">[x]<\/a> &#8220;Enterprise.&#8221; Spoiler Alert. Accessed November 18, 2016. https:\/\/www.foodspoileralert.com\/enterprise.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref11\" name=\"_edn11\">[xi]<\/a> Vanni, Olivia. &#8220;&#8216;Spoiler Alert&#8217; Raises $2.5M Seed for a Food Waste Solution.&#8221; BostInno. 2016. Accessed November 18, 2016. http:\/\/bostinno.streetwise.co\/2016\/11\/16\/spoiler-alert-tax-deductions-for-food-donations-to-nonprofits\/.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref12\" name=\"_edn12\">[xii]<\/a> Jay, Jason, Sergio Gonzalez, and Marine Gerard. &#8220;Sustainability-Oriented Innovation: The More the Merrier.&#8221; MIT Sloan Management Review. January 12, 2016. Accessed November 18, 2016. Sustainability-Oriented Innovation: The More the Merrier.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref13\" name=\"_edn13\">[xiii]<\/a> &#8220;Pilot Scheme Shows Promise.&#8221; SlowFood. Accessed November 18, 2016. http:\/\/www.slowfood.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Pilot-scheme-shows-promise-in-repurposing-commercial-food-wastes.jpg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One start-up is rethinking approaches to food management with the goal of ending the extraordinary plague of waste. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1790,"featured_media":17969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[639,33,502,146,29],"class_list":["post-17968","hck-submission","type-hck-submission","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-boston","category-food","category-marketplace","category-online","category-waste"],"connected_submission_link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/assignment\/digitization-challenge-2016\/","yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Spoiler Alert: At the End, Technology Defeats Food Waste - 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