FoodMaven Secures 8.6 Million Dollars in Funding

In a staggering statistic, over 1.3 billion tons of food are wasted every year, equivalent to $1 trillion dollars. Food waste also generates 3.3 billions tons of carbon dioxide, which accelerates global climate change.^[1] Charities across the nation have tried to combat the issue of food waste for decades, taking unwanted, “ugly” food and donating them to food banks, soup kitchens, and homeless shelters.
Tech Startup FoodMaven is hoping to expedite the food loss issue by connecting oversupplied food to members of the food service industry and selling it at deep discounts. Investors like CEO of Whole Foods Walter Robb, and Walmart heirs The Walton family, have invested nearly 8.6 million dollars to fund the initiative, and FoodMaven has brought 700 businesses in the Colorado region aboard. The funding will be put to use in logistics, planning, technology, innovation, and the onboarding of new employees to boost FoodMaven’s leadership team.
“We are deeply grateful for the vote of confidence this financing represents for what we are doing, but also for the shared passion of creating a market-based solution for a number of societal issues that include: food waste, hunger, and negative environmental impacts.”^[2] shares CEO of FoodMaven, Patrick Bultema.
Hospitals, restaurants, the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, and multiple school districts and senior centers have all agreed to participate, and FoodMaven is hoping to expand across the US in coming months.
And it doesn’t end there. Food that doesn’t sell is then redistributed to hunger relief, and environmentally friendly solutions other than a landfill. Bultema adds, “There is a general, growing recognition that the food system needs to be transformed and that food waste is a big part of that. I think we really are a leader.”
The funding will be put to use in logistics, planning, technology, innovation, and the onboarding of new employees to boost FoodMaven’s leadership team.