Ryan Begin, Divert's CEO and co-founder, joined Cheddar News after the company recently received $1 billion infrastructure development agreement with Enbridge to support its efforts to protect the value of food.

Closing Bell

Divert Converting Food Waste to Renewable Energy Under $1B Pact With Enbridge

We know every year about 35% of the food supply in the us is wasted. It's a lot about 6-13% of that waste actually occurs at grocery stores and that's according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. Well now one company is looking to change that divert is a firm creating ways to eliminate wasted food by converting it into renewable energy. Also just announced a billion dollar infrastructure development agreement with Enbridge to support its efforts. And joining me now is Ryan begin Ceo and co founder of divert. Ryan, thanks so much for coming on the show and your company securing 80 million in growth equity from Enbridge, 20 million from our partners. And you've got a very strong mission here. How are you going to use this capital to grow? We're going to continue to execute the business model that we put together over the last 15 years For us this is 63 million times you write 35% of all food in the US is wasted. It really ends up in landfills are platform that we're building is just targeted on reducing wasted food within that supply chain grocery stores are a fantastic place to start having incredible customers. Kroger target Albertsons to help us get there. So how do you do it? How do you get these grocery stores on board? And then what is the legwork to make this happen? Yeah it's it's about making the process simple for them. So that starts with our in store programs. It's data driven how do you integrate into existing operations to give them an opportunity to learn more about what's being wasted and then at the same time provide the infrastructure on the back end because once you aggregate this much wasted food you have to do something with it. And we look to anaerobic digestion which is a fantastic solution. Mhm. So talk to me more about that digestion process if you will, how do you convert this into energy? And how would people experience that energy in their day to day lives? Great question. So this is a biochemical process. It's a naturally occurring process and we're using that technology at scale larger than any other company in the US where that wasted food is biologically degraded into bio gas that bio gas cleaned up and it really replaces natural gas one for one except it's a renewable energy source. So was it a struggle to get grocery stores on board? Right. I'm just curious what their process was beforehand. Before a company like yours came in and tried to help save some of this wasted food. Yeah. I think the first part is to know you have a problem quantifying that data understanding through waste audits really getting into the dumpsters to look at what happens. It's part of that discovery process that we take our customers on from that point they they really es de driven. So it's it's a pretty easy conversation from that point forward when we're integrating the way we do what our next steps this year, you mentioned obviously some of the big grocery stores that you partner with, Ryan, but how do you want to keep growing the business? So we have, we are targeting 30 locations across the us that we're expanding into. That puts us within reach of 80% of the us population, 63 million tons. Today we process just under 0.5% of that are full build out, gives us roughly 5%. So this year we're continuing to accelerate our growth plans and you know, the goal is to reach that 30 plants within the next eight years. Alright, Ryan, I compost every week. So I feel like I am doing my part with NYC grow here. What what compost I do have. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Congratulations. That's Ryan, begin at Ceo and co founder of divert