Do Good Foods is a new climate-forward CPG company built to combat climate change by fighting food waste.
Approximately 40 percent of the food grown in the United States is being thrown away. The founders of Do Good Foods, Justin and Matt Kamine, recognized the opportunity to apply their expertise in building massive infrastructure to create a scalable solution to eliminating one of the largest, and solvable, contributors to climate change – food waste.
Do Good Foods is a closed loop system that begins and ends at the supermarket. The company collects surplus fruits, vegetables, and meat from grocers—after all community donations can be made—and upcycles it into nutrient-rich dried animal feed (which, according to the EPA Hierarchy, is the next best use after human consumption). The feed is then incorporated into the animals’ diet, producing a carbon reduced animal protein that is then sold to consumers at retail.
The company’s first product, Do Good Chicken, will have a substantially smaller carbon footprint than conventional chicken. Specifically, each Do Good Chicken avoids four pounds of food going to landfills and thereby saves three pounds of GHG emissions.
By design, Do Good Chicken meets consumers where they are – meaning it doesn’t change how they shop and eat—it just makes it easier and more accessible to make a more sustainable choice simply by purchasing chicken.
“Consumers are raising their hands every day asking ‘what can I do to make a difference,'” says Justin Kamine, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Do Good Foods. “Do Good Foods gives them the ability to make a choice that is good for their plate—a healthy, delicious chicken—and also good for the planet. If one out of every five chickens we consume was a Do Good Chicken we could help solve food waste!”
In fact, according to a recent GreenPrint study, 77 percent of Americans are concerned about the environmental impact of products they buy and Google searches relating to sustainability grew by more than 70 percent over the last five years, according to a report published by the World Wildlife Fund. Additionally, in the United States, the report shows, online demand for sustainable goods quadrupled between 2016 and 2018. For Kamine and Do Good Foods, these changing norms offer the opportunity to achieve scalable, sustainable impact.
“When you think about the fact consumers eat, on average, over 90 pounds of chicken a year, the impact they can make simply by choosing Do Good Chicken is pretty amazing” adds Kamine. “The time is now to make real impact.”
Do Good Foods’ first production facility, based in Pennsylvania, can take in and convert 160 tons of surplus food from approximately 450 grocery stores into animal feed every day. The company plans to build out many more facilities over the next five years.
See a video animation of the process here:
