Falling In Love With Food Waste Could Be the Solution To A Mountain Sized Issue

Food waste isn’t waste until it’s wasted.

Kristian Krugman is one of the innovators behind SOULMUCH, a California-based cookie company that saves rice and quinoa from landfill and uses it to make cookies instead. Krissy and her team won the CEC Youth Innovation Challenge in 2017 and have continued to lead the charge against food waste in their community ever since. As part of our efforts to #ShrinkFoodWaste in North America, we caught up with her to discuss how she and her team approach the challenge of food waste and what they're doing to shrink the food waste mountain that’s in front of all of us.

This interview has been condensed and some excerpts have been edited for clarity.

We met you in 2017 when you won the Youth Innovation Challenge. Can you tell us a little bit more about how you ended up at that point and what led you to the creation of SOULMUCH?

When we first met you all, we were servers at a restaurant where we noticed tons of food being wasted at the end of the night, specifically brown rice and quinoa. At the time, we were also in the first semester of our business accelerator program where we were trying to figure out how we could address food waste.

Originally, the idea was that we would turn this rice and quinoa into a superfood powder that could be a supplement for consumers. But we also were looking at doing some food relief organization work. We wanted to partner with local food banks and run it as a nonprofit and be behind the scenes. So we went to the food bank and we pitched our idea. We were like, “Hey, would you guys ever do a superfood powder partnership?” And they’re like, “no, we have very, very limited funds. Honestly, even buying something like a jar of peanut butter is a challenge for us most months of the year.” We thought, whoa — we, unfortunately, don’t have a business model that can fit.

So then, knowing that we still had a huge problem, we started doing a lot of consumer research and we asked our future customers: “if you had anything you wanted to eat made of juice pulp and grains, what would it be?” And basically, people wanted an on-the-go snack. So we decided to go with cookies — like, who doesn’t love cookies!? They’re a healthy alternative, but it’s still something people always love to indulge in.

So, why food waste? Why not just start your own different type of company?

We could have just been a cookie company — even a vegan gluten-free cookie company. But I just like the fact that I have a solution to this particular problem. And the idea that, if you take small baby steps, then people will have something to be hopeful about. For me, it’s about finding a way to reduce the waste. But it’s also about creating messages and explaining to others that food waste isn’t waste until it’s wasted.

Do you find that your peers share and accept this perspective of food waste?

So, we started at a farmers’ market. It was where we started to sell our product here locally. And honestly, and there are definitely people who come up to us and said “… wait, recycled food?! No way.” They might not accept it right then because they have a conception or an idea in their mind about what food waste is. And then, once I explain, there are only a few that won’t accept it. But if anything, they’re open to learning.

With those challenges in mind, how do you feel the issue of food waste should be communicated to young people?

Food has become very commercialized and industrialized in order to feed so many people. It has become something that has been completely detached from people. I think the biggest problem that came out of that shift is that it disconnected people from understanding the effort that goes into growing food.

Something that helps me, and I feel like a lot of my peers is understanding the accountability of food. I love the idea of meeting the person that’s growing your food or having even a single experience of growing your own food. It’s not accessible to everyone, of course, but even just something as small as a vegetable grown at home addresses this issue. Talking about this is important because simply saying that nobody should waste food is just setting people up for failure which then becomes this negative thought cycle. It’s about being kind to yourself and being kind to others.

It sounds like the way that you aim to communicate this issue is by making it a little bit more meaningful and realistic to people — helping people identify with the problem, but also giving them a bit of inspiration to take on the challenge.

I think that really is it. If you don’t empower or inspire people, it’s really hard to get things moving. It’s like running through sludge. We think this approach makes a world of difference.

What then, would be your advice to a young person who feels inspired to take on this issue?

First of all, there’s so much food waste to go around. So please, please get involved. Fall in love with the problem and then you can build anything you want. What I love about this is I got to build something that was never here. It’s the coolest feeling. I honestly never thought I was going to be an entrepreneur, I never thought I was going to run a company, but the thing is, four years ago, there was nothing — there was no solution to this problem in our region. There was no SOULMUCH, there were no upcycled cookies, there was no fifteen thousand pounds of food diverted from the landfill. But my team got together, and we found a solution for that… and that’s neat for us — or at least for me.

Alternatively then, what would be your advice to a young person who feels overwhelmed by the issue of food waste?

There is a lot to get overwhelmed and lost on but just pick one little part, pick the part that frustrates you the most. Just try to even get one part that you can tangibly touch if you can. Try to get as close to your problem as possible and work from there. There’s tech, post-consumer foods, local farm work, etc… figure out what bothers you about it and go from there.

This interview was conducted as part of the CEC’s #ShrinkFoodWaste campaign which aims to bring attention to the problem of food waste in North American homes, communities, and cities. If you’re curious about how food loss and waste affect us all, please visit the Food Matters Action Kit and learn more about what you can do to #ShrinkFoodWaste.

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