Food2Soil co-CEOs Annabel Schweiger and Josie Grenfell at their Hume facility on a chilly morning. Photo: Lucy Ridge.
Canberra business Food2Soil is turning commercial food waste into microbially alive biofertilisers.
Co-CEOs Annabel Schweiger and Josie Grenfell share a passion for permaculture, market gardening and sustainability. They founded their business in a backyard shed, moved to a converted shearing shed before upgrading to their current commercial facility in Hume.
Food waste accounts for three per cent of Australia’s annual greenhouse gas emissions. It’s a huge problem that requires a range of solutions.
Annabel and Josie wanted a way to reduce waste, combat climate change and improve land regeneration. They decided to focus their efforts on commercial fresh produce waste: whole fruits and vegetables direct from large suppliers.
“It’s a really clean, high-quality input which gives us a premium product,” Josie told Region.
“There’s no micro-plastics and no contaminants: just valuable nutrients being returned to the soil.”
Food2Soil sells to home gardeners and larger businesses in the agricultural sector. Photo: Lucy Ridge.
After sorting the fruit and vegetable waste (removing any fruit stickers and rubber bands), they blend it with spent coffee grounds and ferment the mix in repurposed dairy vats for up to four weeks – along with some bacteria they jokingly call their “secret herbs and spices” – to create their biofertilisers.
Josie trained as a dietician, Annabel as a chef. So the co-CEOs are aware of what makes a balanced meal for humans and for their fermenters!
“It’s essentially a mechanical gut,” Josie said.
And just as fermented foods such as sauerkraut or kombucha are great for your gut health, the biofertilisers made by Food2Soil are great for soil health.
“Not only does it have the nutrients of food waste, it has the biology that plants and soils need to thrive,” Annabel said.
“During the process, proteins are turned into amino acids and peptides which are bioavailable for plants to use.”
Food2Soil biofertiliser contains beneficial microbes still alive and active. Photo: Lucy Ridge.
Unlike many seaweed-based liquid fertilisers pasteurised for shelf stability, the Food2Soil biofertilisers contain active beneficial microbes: it’s a living product which makes it easier for plants to absorb the nutrients.
One of the biggest challenges Josie and Annabel faced was finding appropriate containers to vent the gasses released by these living microbes. But don’t worry: the product isn’t smelly. In fact, having visited the Hume Brewhaus I can attest the whole fermentation process is fairly odour free!
The B-Corp Certified company initially focussed on selling its biofertilisers to home gardeners. But it now sells many of its products at scale into the agriculture sector. Other customers include commercial landscaping companies, mining companies looking to remediate mine sites and employees caring for local parks and outdoor spaces around towns.
The product is safe to use, contains no synthetic chemicals (unlike many other commercial fertilisers) and you can even return and refill your container!
These repurposed dairy vats are the ‘mechanical guts’ of the Food2Soil process. Photo: Lucy Ridge.
Annabel and Josie would love to see similar facilities attached to all major fruit and vegetable markets, sending trucks back to the farm with Food2Soil biofertilisers after they’ve dropped off their harvest.
It’s a vision for a circular economy which results in healthier soils and waste diverted from landfill: all wrapped up in a locally made product.
Find out more about Food2Soil, including information about stockists, on its website.
