Australian start-up, Food Recycle, says its $3 million capital raise will help commercialise its patented technology that turns food waste into high-performance animal feed. The technology has been in the works since 2019, undergoing trials with layer hens, prawns, barramundi, and aquaponics, and is now ready to hit the market.
With the National Food Waste Summit underway in Melbourne this week, companies, projects, and initiatives working to reduce Australia's food waste are centre stage. New South Wales-based company, Food Recycle, has patented a production method to turn commercial food waste into animal feed.
Food Recycle CEO, Norm Boyle said the company’s process delivers on sustainability, circular economy, and food security outcomes.
“There are other processes out there, but they typically only deliver partial benefits because they use food waste to create a secondary process. Food Recycle takes the next step and uses food to produce food,” Boyle said.
The process takes food waste from a variety of sources, including restaurants, abattoirs, farms, and processors. Each food waste stream is processed individually, analysed, and stored separately as ingredients.
“We then measure the nutritional and amino acid profile of each ingredient and then mix them together to make complete feeds,” said Boyle.
Two tonnes of food waste can be converted into one tonne of complete feed suitable for poultry, pigs, and aquaculture. Apart from preventing the generation of methane, Food Recycle’s processing of food waste also eliminates biosecurity risks
Food & Drink Business reported on the company’s early stages in 2019, when Food Recycle was working with RMR Process to test the technology with chickens. Since then, testing has shown the feed produces larger, healthier hens, eggs, and fish.
Details of the technology trials, conducted by CSIRO, Western Sydney University (WSU) and University of New England (UNE), can be found here.
Next steps for the company
After the success of these trials, Food Recycle is seeking to raise $3 million through crowd-funding platform, Swarmer, to commercialise its technology and scale-up activities in Australia and New Zealand.
Boyle said that the funds raised will be put towards facility engineering and systems design, to allow for the first commercial-scale production facility to be built under the Food Recycle patented technology and know-how licence agreement.
“The funds will also help with cash flow requirements as we look to appoint a technology and knowhow licensee for Australia and New Zealand, which will construct multiple production facilities, with Food Recycle receiving royalty payments on the sale of feed by the licensee,” he adds.
“The licensee will be required to construct a minimum of 25 production facilities over a 10-year period, and we would expect 12 of these in the first five years.”
The Swarmer crowd-funding campaign – which enters a three-week Expressions of Interest (EOI) phase on 8 August, followed by a three-week investment phase – allows individual investments starting from $100, with investors given shares in the company.
“This capital raise provides everyone the chance to get in on the ground floor with a technology that is making a positive environmental difference in the world,” said Boyle.
