Makers of kitchen recycling machines imagine a new, less gross way to dispose of food waste

The makers of machines for recycling food waste have seen the future of kitchens, and it contains an appliance that dehydrates scraps without emitting smelly odours.

In the quest to recycle kitchen scraps, one household at a time, the primary sales pitch is that the electric appliance turns food waste into a nutrient-rich substance overnight that could be mixed into soil in a garden bed.

Ottawa-based Food Cycle Science Corp., or FCS, is a leader in the fledgling global industry to recycle scraps by promoting its FoodCycler brand, with distributors such as Vita-Mix Corp.

Marketers of food recycling machines tout the ability to largely avoid the “yuck factor.” Before allowing kitchen discards to get too slimy and gross, they are tossed into a specially designed, removable bucket with blades.

With the press of a button to activate the motor, the machine dries and grinds the food materials inside the bucket to less than one-10th of their original volume.

“Our enemy is the landfill. If you’re sending your waste to the landfill, we’d like you to look at FoodCycler as a potential solution,” said Bradley Crepeau, chief executive officer at FCS. He co-founded the company in 2011 with Murray Arthur, and the first FCS appliance popped up in 2017.

The end result with newer models of the FoodCycler, with improved grinding technology, is a substance looking similar to coffee grounds or dirt at the bottom of the bucket.

The long-term hope is that operating the machines will also lead to changes in behaviour through improved meal planning and minimizing waste because households will have a greater awareness of kitchen scraps that inevitably pile up, from banana peels and mouldy tomatoes to chicken bones and wilting lettuce.

Other appliances vying to win over consumers include Kelowna, B.C.-based Open Mind Developments Corp.’s Lomi brand. The FoodCycler and Lomi are countertop appliances about the size of a bread maker.

San Bruno, Calif.-based Mill Industries Inc.’s Mill product is a larger appliance about the size of an indoor trash can.

Food recycling machines remove moisture and create a fertilizer of sorts that is valuable and contains nutrients, but there are not the organisms that are found in a composter. So while the residue at the bottom of the appliance’s bucket is not compost, it can be used as a “soil amendment” to improve garden growth.

When food waste ends up in the landfill, the organic matter decomposes, resulting in potent methane emissions that contribute to climate change.

FCS, whose head office and innovation lab are located in Ottawa, manufactures the FoodCycler through two contractors in Asia.

The company got a financial lift last month from Power Sustainable Lios, a subsidiary under Montreal-based financial conglomerate Power Corp. of Canada. The agri-food private equity fund declined to comment on how much it has invested in FCS. But it aims to invest $25-million to $50-million in each selected company, and that could involve holding majority or minority stakes.

“It’s the ability to really mitigate the risk of sending that food waste to landfill,” said Jonathan Belair, managing partner at Power Sustainable Lios. “By processing the food waste through the FoodCycler, you’re in essence avoiding that methane release.”

Since some multiunit residential buildings lack options to easily dispose of food waste, FCS has been seeking to find a niche in major urban areas, where there are both landfills and composting systems.

The company is also keen on making inroads in smaller municipalities in Canada and taking advantage of opportunities in key international markets requiring better ways to handle discards. FCS has distributors in countries such as South Korea, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand.

Over the past two years, smaller Canadian municipalities have embraced partnerships with FCS.

Many municipalities are subsidizing residents’ purchase of the countertop machines as they seek new ways to help divert organic matter away from landfills, whether it’s fruit and vegetables that were never eaten and turned rotten, or leftovers forgotten in the fridge.

In some regions, expensive methane-capturing systems produce what is marketed as “renewable natural gas,” but they do not eliminate methane leaks entirely.

FCS has signed up about 140 Canadian municipalities, including nearly 90 in Ontario, to join partnership programs to get more of the company’s indoor appliances into households. The municipalities span the country, including Nelson, B.C., Kirkland Lake, Ont., and Corner Brook, N.L.

In modern kitchens, there are decidedly different gadgets that have broader consumer appeal such as air fryers, which typically cost $80 to $250 each at an array of retail stores. Air fryers have grown in popularity in recent years, offering the gratification and guilty pleasure of French fries and other tasty grub.

By contrast, the food recycling machine is a niche product because it is pricey, and far from common in today’s kitchens. The latest versions typically sell online for $500 to $800 for countertop models, depending on the size. Boosters of the technology espouse being virtuous by diverting waste from landfills as households seek to make a small but important contribution to reducing methane and therefore helping to save the planet.

Urban areas have regular curbside pickup of wet organic waste, but many rural communities are pondering alternatives, given the high costs of building facilities to handle organics.

The recycling task begins by placing kitchen discards into the special bucket, with a capacity of up to five litres in the case of the FoodCycler.

Depending on the setting, it takes four to nine hours for the machine to heat, dry and grind the material, while carbon filters minimize foul odours.

There are cautionary notes such as chicken bones being okay, but keeping out beef bones because they are too thick and could cause a jam. The machines can supplement traditional composting systems and curbside organic collection, or provide a solution where municipal composting doesn’t exist.

Industry experts say food recycling appliances could be useful for rural residents wanting to prevent bears and other wildlife from sniffing around properties, or help urban dwellers trying to prevent crafty raccoons from breaking into curbside organic bins.

Food recycling machines are a good idea because many smaller municipalities in Canada lack curbside collection of organics, said Calvin Lakhan, a research scientist who is director of the Circular Innovation Hub at York University in Toronto.

“Where I think that these machines like the FoodCycler have a critical role to play is in rural and Northern communities or in multiunit residential buildings where there is no access to curbside organics collection,” Dr. Lakhan said.

“If you want to get the best bang for the environmental buck, we would be putting a lot more effort into avoiding food waste in a landfill.”

How long it might take for food recycling machines to gain widespread acceptance is unclear, but if history is any guide, change is inevitable in the kitchen.

“Think back to what a kitchen was like 100 years ago,” said Dana McCauley, CEO at the Canadian Food Innovation Network, which fosters collaboration in the food industry.

Every bit helps when trying to divert food scraps from the landfill, given that municipalities are looking for innovative ways to control a range of costs from handling garbage, plastics and various wastes from kitchens and backyards, she said.

Ms. McCauley envisages a future with technological advances and ingenuity to enable individuals in smart kitchens to play an important role in reducing food waste.

“I’m confident that our kitchens will operate much differently in the future, be much more energy efficient,” she said. “Waste streams like landfills create costs for municipalities and problems for the environment.”