Innovative Solution to Reducing Food Waste and its Impact on the Environment – Moody Soliman, Ryp Labs

This is texturung TV. I'm Bonnie Schneider. Thanks for watching Tech strong TV combating Global Food waste while delivering products that improve people's health safety and quality of life is no easy task, but it's exactly what my next guest is passionate about joining me.

Now is Moody Solomon an experienced entrepreneur and startup founder with over 17 years experience in the medical device biotech and agtech industries as CEO of ripe Labs. He leads a team developing and commercializing solutions to combat Global Food waste naturally and safely Moody. Thanks so much for joining me.

Thank you for having me Bonnie. Well, tell me all about ripe Labs. How did you get started with this?

And what is the company's mission? Yeah, absolutely. So Bonnie when when you look at Food waste and the impact that food waste has not just from an economical standpoint, but also from a social environmental standpoint.

The statistics are just staggering every minute. We are wasting enough food to feed over one million people and that very same food waste ends up in landfills releasing over 6,000 metrics of CO2 gas and to put it in perspective here in the US all of the uneatened food that ends up in those landfills. Releases twice as much greenhouse gases as all us commercial flights combined.

So really it's it's a huge problem. It's not just an economical social environmental problem. And so when we looked at this we realized that the current food supply chain system is unbelievably inefficient.

6 trillion dollars of losses every year. So when we looked at this problem, we realized that if we're going to come up with a solution that's going to have a meaningful impact. It has to be easy to use can be applied anywhere along the supply chain and is scalable in economical not just for the largest of Distributors and packing houses that can process up to 20 million pieces of fruit per day, but also to the smallest of potential customers like small older farmers.

And so what we ended up developing at right Labs is a natural and safe bioactive formulation that you can simply apply to the surface of a sticker you take that very same sticker peel it apply to your fruit or a package of your fruit releases the natural and say bioactive compounds in the vapor fade protecting that fruit and in some cases doubling the shelf life of that produce. Well that's appealing to have extra time with your food. I mean and I grew you know, I did research on this.

I wrote a book about climate change and I was surprised to see how much food waste is an issue and I think most people would be as well and it's sometimes it's often preventable just like you mentioned about produce just not or not over shopping, you know, not letting things go to waste. Is this something that you noticed in your own personal life about food waste like what dream to this area? Yeah.

So very very good question. I actually I come from the medical device industry. That's that's where I spent most of my career and so when when Looked at with my business partner and co-founder Steve hultang we wanted to start something.

We wanted to stay in that space that develops on commercializes technologies that have impact on people's lives. And when we came across this concept of of a sticker that you can apply to fruit to extend the shelf life. We started digging a little deeper into the problem.

And of course what we realized right off the bat is it's something that affects every single person on the face of this planet literally and it's independent of their you know, where they come from their social status their, you know, What their background is including us? And so when we talked to our you know, starting with just our friends and family and we would talk to them about this problem it resonated with everyone everyone experiences food waste at some level. And so it's definitely something that you know is is impactful and and can really change people's lives in many different ways.

What kind of research and testing went into to developing sticks fresh and what were some of the challenges that you faced during that development process? Yeah, great question. So, you know we've been developing this formulation now for about five years.

So definitely a lot of r&dm product development has gone into the process and rightly. So because it's a very complex problem to solve we think of fruit and vegetables is just you know something that's sitting there on our plate but it's actually a living breathing organism with an immune system, you know, a slight variation in temperature two degree or one degree variation can have a huge impact on the shelf life of that produce. And so those were some of the challenges it's just dealing with all the different use cases if you're working with strawberries that are usually you know picked and end up on the store shelf within two to three days of being harvested versus working with apples.

For example that could last up to six months in Cold Storage before being on your plate. So all different use case conditions different Environmental. Conditions that all can impact the outcome and the performance of our technology.

Can you walk us through the process for consumers about how they would use this product? Yes, so, you know, we're actually to begin with we're targeting packing houses and and retailers. So we're starting more of a B2B today now eventually what we're really excited about and what gets us really going is that this technology can be applied anywhere along the supply chain.

So down the line we could eventually see it being applied at the Harvest level with farmers and also one day for you as a consumer you can go and pick up a pack of those stickers and and use them at home. But right now we realize that we're if we're gonna if we're going to go after the segment where we can make the most impact it's those packing houses and retailers where again they can process anywhere from two to 20 million pieces of fruit per day. How does this?

Compared to other solutions that are in this market. I think that food is especially coming out of the pandemic. We realized how much we rely on a speedy delivery for food and food services.

So now a lot of solutions are being looked at to improve the supply chain and agriculture. So, where do you feel that ripe Labs fits into all that? Yeah, you know you you actually touched on it in part here of your description of the problem that it's it's a huge problem and you can really approach it from many different angles, you know, one of which of the most basic level for consumers is just education and you know, not over shopping, you know, using the fruit and putting it like in the fridge right away and and and using it right we're particularly focused on is one particular segment that focuses on premature rotting or slowing down the premature rotting process, but there's definitely other Technologies and other innovative solutions out there that focus on for example, the right knee process slowing down the ripening process for your avocados or your bananas and you know Refrigeration, that's the gold standard today.

And so we are where we looked at. We looked at it and said, okay. Well, what is a simple solution that can be applied not just in complementary to Refrigeration.

But also if you have lack of refrigeration, is this something that can actually helps slow down that process and and that's what we came up. Yeah, it's really interesting that you mentioned avocados. I remember writing about that and how water shortages are a big problem with that.

I wonder if there's almost like a complimentary benefit to write Labs where if you have the food longer you're using less resources, you know, you're not throwing it out. You're not shopping for looking for avocados that aren't available and have you thought about that like the water usage and how that comes into it. Absolutely absolutely because now, you know, one of one of the big things that we're not aware of is exactly that how much water is used to Growing our food and then you start also looking into other resources like Transportation costs and and all of the energy that just goes into growing that one piece of avocado and so by making our food last longer and reducing those those losses that waste we would naturally go back up the supply chain and use less natural resources including water.

So that's another indirect benefit of being able to extend the Shelf. Produce that's absolutely essential especially with the with the speed of of how fast our population are growing yet. You know, we we're going to have a scarcity of food sooner rather than later.

That's true. And you know, the climate check in general has seen tremendous growth over the past few years, but there has been some reduction obviously in the tax space. Does that concern you or do you still think we're going to see this tremendous investment in climate Tech in general?

Yeah, and in fact, I think you know given the economic conditions that we've seen especially throughout 2022 climate pack has been one of the sectors that has been resistant to those to those issues and those challenges and it's it's just because I think it's not just a an Innovative Solution. That's a nice to have it's one that's a must have for many Industries and many Industries realize this and it's one of the ways to not just you know, boost revenue or increased profits but also cut costs and so many Industries recognize that and so continue to invest quite heavily and we're just I think seeing the tip of the iceberg here of what's possible. It's really interesting Bonnie because when we started in this industry five years ago, and we would approach those packing houses and retailers you'd go and talk to their R&D team and it's like an R&D a few people that's working on everything, you know from shelf life.

Mentioned to the Machinery that they use in their warehouse to everything else that's aren't inflated. And you fast forward a few years later and what we're already starting to observe is they're starting to peel out teams that are just solely focused on sustainability and shelf life extension and the trend in the industry where they're realizing the the importance of focusing on that particular part of the of the segment So it really seems I mean not to use a plan words, but you've hit a sweet spot, you know in this climate Tech space where there is a need many of people that are watching this are working in devops or other areas of it and they may have ideas that they like to explore in the startup world. Do you have any advice for people just kind of starting out?

Yeah, always you know, I would say first of all look for a real problem that really needs solving, you know often what ends up happening is you have very smart very capable people they come up with a really cool solution a really cool technology and then they go out in the market and they start looking for a problem that that solution could solve whereas find the problem first and then start looking for a solution. So that would be my first piece of advice and I and I think it would yeah, I would really help them, you know solve that product Market fit right from the start. I think that is really good advice that Moody Solomon is a pleasure to speak with you and learn more about ripe labs and all the Innovative work that you're doing in this food space and new technologies to make our favorite fruits last longer and reduce food waste.

Thanks for joining us on techstrong TV. Thank you so much for having me. Pleasure.

Okay, stay with us. We'll have a lot more coming up.