Episode 13 Transcript: Food Waste: Hidden Climate Flood

Molly Wood: 

Hey, it's Molly Wood, and welcome back to Everybody in the Pool, the podcast for the climate economy. We're diving deep into the climate crisis and coming up with solutions.

I'm super excited about today's guest because he's a serial entrepreneur in the climate space … who's making solutions that are interesting … unexpected … and just like cool.

And that's good because you want people to ASPIRE … to want to adopt impactful climate solutions … not just do it because they have to. And in this case … it's not a very sexy problem, but it's a BIG one.

Matt Rogers: 

Hi, I'm, I'm Matt Rogers, uh, founder and c e o at Mill. Uh, I'm working on getting rid of food waste.

Molly Wood: So Mill … is basically the fanciest food composter kitchen appliance ever … you put your food waste in it … it processes it down into basically like dried up odorless dirt that you mail back to them one every month or so … and they upcycle it into chicken feed.

Pricing varies depending on whether you want to pay annually or not … but it works out to just a hair over a dollar a day for the bin and the mail service.

But more on Mill … in a minute.

See … Matt Rogers learned to make innately cool products at the temple of such things … he was at Apple for ten years working on the iPod … five generations of iPhones … and the very first iPad … before he went on to co-found Nest … you know … the smart, connected thermostat …

which I thought was almost an accidentally impactful climate solution but it turns out … that was his plan all along.

Matt Rogers: 

Absolutely. Uh, the whole reason why I started Nest, oh away way back in 2010 was because of climate change.

Molly Wood: 

It was?

Matt Rogers: 

Uh, and you know, I've, I've actually kind of built my whole career on areas of climate that people overlook. And when, when I started Nest back in 2010, the kind of astonishing aha fact that kind of jumped out, that was the whole imps behind starting the company, was that heating and cooling was responsible for half of home's energy.

So it was like meaningful percentage of our emissions, uh, of our energy use and . We had these dumb white plastic boxes on the wall that no one could program. And that just didn't make sense to me, especially coming from Apple at the time.

Molly Wood: 

Yep.

Matt Rogers: 

And, uh, the parallels to what we're doing at Mill are pretty obvious actually.

Molly Wood: 

How so?

Matt Rogers: 

Mill is an end-to-end food recycling service. So from your kitchen counter all the way back to the farm, , uh, and we do everything in between. And yeah, like thinking about it, like taking a step back, like no one likes waste. Like no one's happy with trash. Like there's no like pro waste lobby out there.

Uh, it's one of those things that we kind of accepted and we take for granted that we have to live with, but we don't. And we built Mill as a way to build a new system.

Molly Wood: 

Mm-hmm.

Matt Rogers: 

Can we build a system that is better, easier, more user-friendly, . Odorless and just like easier for a way of life that's also better for the planet.

And going back to the Nest example, people bought the Nest thermostat because it was cool, 'cause it looked good, 'cause they'd want to have it on their wall, like because their friends told them about it. But also you'd feel really good that you'd save energy. So it has this kind of rational and emotional component to it.

It looks good. I feel good about it. I'm doing the right thing, but I'm, I'm saving money, I'm saving energy. Uh, and the parallels to what we're doing in waste are pretty clear.

Molly Wood: 

Yep. So then tell me about the evolution of the, what was the aha moment about food waste and waste in particular that made you go, okay, mill? Is the solution sort of a similarly maybe hidden climate cost for people? I.

Matt Rogers: 

Yeah. So before we started Mill, I was working . As a climate investor and philanthropist, doing grant making and investing in climate, looking for other overlooked solutions. And I, I, I made a bunch of investments, helped a lot of new companies get started, started a few not in profits, in other overlooked areas, and kind of always been looking for something that was gonna change the waste industry.

'cause again, like if you look at project drawdown, that's a really good way of getting into climate. Like, like what, what are the things we have to go do?

Molly Wood: 

Right. For who are not familiar, project Drawdown is an unbelievably comprehensive book that effectively takes every sector of the economy, ranks it in terms of, uh, emissions and, and, uh, mitigation, and basically gives you a list like, here's to start. Yep.

Matt Rogers: That's right. And one of the top things on the list is get rid of food waste and like as an engineer and designer, like, oh, like what are the things we need to do that? and did a lot of research, spent a lot of time talking to experts, being professors. And in the kind of the early days of the pandemic in 2020, my co-founder Harry and I would get on the phone or get on the Zoom with a lot of folks who were also stuck at home at the time.

It was cool 'cause everyone was available, like no one's like, oh, I'm on vacation Uh, so like we were able to talk to a lot of experts and what we learned is that preventing food waste is a behavior change issue. That actually there are a lot of solutions that are out there and there are a lot of cities that are making it, you know, accessible to folks.

You know, like I'm in the Bay Area, like in San Francisco we have a green bin. And what we learned is that even in cities that have green bins, people don't use them. And like even in the best kind of the, the benchmark cities out there, like, you know, Seattle, uh, the San Francisco area, they talk about like 30%, uh, participation as like the gold standard.

pretty bad. So, so like looking at kind of the ecosystem when we were starting, we're like, okay, like behavior change. That's something that we know how to do. Like we make a, we make great products, we make great experiences that are really sticky, that people love, that are better than what came before.

So that, that's, that's what led to the evolution of mill. Uh, that's why we have this beautiful bin that goes in a kitchen that you'd actually would want to have that is odorless. That takes weeks to fill up. Because that's better. Like that's the kinda stuff that's gonna drive behavior change. Like, oh, like it's a trash can.

It's easy. You step on the pedal, it opens up great, but like all the other stuff is just easier and better. Uh, 'cause that's what's gonna make the experience sticky. 'cause like if it's gross and stinky and you get fruit flies or rats, like no one's doing this thing. It's just gonna happen.

Molly Wood: And are those the barriers that you find to, to composting in terms of that 20 and 30%? I mean, I know people in my life who, like, I just have a little IKEA bucket I empty it every day, it's not that hard. But people really are resistant to having like food scraps in the kitchen.

Matt Rogers: 

I've been to think about my own life. Uh, my wife and I are deep climate evangelists like we've dedicated our entire lives to fighting climate change. And we had a countertop pale. And, uh, we had a fruit fly infestation we could just not get rid of. So like I had put, bought this like yellow sticky stuff that goes all around the house to like hopefully catch those fruit flies.

like, even like the well most, well-meaning households, like that's a lot of inconvenience. And you know, Harry and I did a bunch of user research and user studies. We talked to people all around the country and like we would talk to folks like in DC or in New York City who are putting food waste in the freezer.

And once a week walking it down to the farmer's market because that was the only place that would take it other than the trash obviously.

Molly Wood: 

Wow.

Matt Rogers: 

So like that's a lot of inconvenience. So like thinking about that much inconvenience, like we knew we had to build a new system, like the existing system's just not gonna work.

This idea of, uh, putting raw growth stuff outside of the curb. and then having diesel trucks drive it around and pick it up and then take it somewhere else. That's just like, that's how we did it in the 18 hundreds. Like if we were starting over, would we still do it that way?

Molly Wood: 

What is the thing, you know, we've been explaining this I think a couple times here and there on the show, on this show, but really break it down for us why food waste is such a big problem, why this is the thing to tackle and why it's so high on that project draw down list.

Matt Rogers: Yes. So, and this is something that I think most folks don't understand. So when food goes in the trash, it goes to landfill and it just doesn't degrade into dirt. Uh, they get, you know, things get piled on top, landfills are sealed. Uh, and when food degrades without oxygen, it degrades, anaerobically and creates methane.

And methane is, I'm sure everyone knows, is like public enemy number one. It's 80 times more potent than c o two over the next 20 years in a time when we really need to be urgently stopping warming. So it's, it's warming faster. Uh, methane's very, very potent.

Matt Rogers: So the, the kind of standard in, in kind of climate science today is food waste is eight to 10% of global emissions, which is astronomical. That said, recent research, there was actually a, a study published in nature just a couple weeks ago because that's, you know, like this is, this is on the kind of forefront of science now that we're studying food waste.

Uh, that actually it's, it's more like 14 to 16% of emissions.

Molly Wood: 

Oof.

Matt Rogers: 

It's like super high and that's . That's not just the methane side. That's the whole, that's the whole equation. That's the energy and the water it takes to grow the food and transport it and refrigerate it, and the grocery stores and the whole, whole end-to-end supply chain.

The system we've created for food is, it's pretty intensive to grow It's a lot of work. And then we, uh, go ahead and throw out 40% of that food that we grow.

Molly Wood: 

Right? And it could, we'll get to this part of the, the mill proposition in a minute. It has value, there is a waste to value chain. Okay, but first, before I get there, I'm jumping ahead. Describe it, like, describe the product for us, for people who read about it. It made a huge splash, of course, when it was announced.

Matt Rogers: 

It's very exciting. But you know,

Look like, like. When, when, when the team from Apple and Nest design a trash bin, like you'd hope it would get some attention. Uh uh, and, and actually one, and one of the funniest descriptions I've seen out there, uh, was an article just published recently that com compared it to a very large version of AirPods.

It was just really funny it is kind of what it kind of what it looks like. Uh, so yeah, it's, it's a beautiful, uh, white steel bin that has a wood veneer top. It has a beautiful stainless steel pedal that you step on, and it opens up very eloquently, uh, and you use it like a trash bin, like you take your dinner plate or your cutting board scraps and you kind of swipe it in there.

And what, that's kind of where the, the normalcy stops. Like once the lid closed is where all the magic happens. Uh, it takes all the food that you put in and dries it and grinds it. So it dehydrates the food, takes the water out. And because food is mostly water food's, like 80% plus water, uh, it gets small and light and shelf stable.

So like, eating that dried food, dried food lasts forever. You know, like astronauts have dried food, right? Like it's light. You wouldn't wanna put wet food up in rockets to, to get up to space. Uh, so it's cool. It's light, it's shelf stable. It doesn't go bad. It doesn't smell. Uh, it takes weeks to fill up. So because it's dry, you could go and fill it up again and it's gonna cook down the next day.

Every day you wake up in the morning and it's empty again. Uh, so like it takes weeks to fill up. So a at the end of weeks, you take the bin and you jump it into one of the boxes we provide, and you can send it back to us. The post office is gonna come pick it up from your doorstep. So like very, because it's not gross, you don't need to run a garbage truck anymore.

You literally put this in a box and we will pick it up. Uh, and then we get it back to us to sort it, sift it, clean it, pasteurize it to then feed chickens, uh, to keep it as food as you say.

Molly Wood: 

Yeah, so this is the, I feel like this is the double unlock because presumably the way we are currently feeding chickens is to like create all new food or something really carbon intensive and probably gross.

Matt Rogers: 

Yes. Uh, Yeah, about 30% of all arable land on earth are used to grow food for livestock. So talk about like land, water, resources, time, labor, et cetera. It is a phenomenal amount that we spend as a society, as a planet that grow wheat, corn, soy, to then feed our animals. And uh, for a poultry farmer, for a chicken farmer, Uh, if they look at their emissions, 60% of their emissions is the feed that they buy.

You know, the, the rest is what happens on the farm, but 60% is the feed that they're buying. So by buying our new, uh, recycled feed, they're actually buying a carbon negative feed ingredient that kind of neutralizes all the other emissions from the feed that they bought otherwise.

Molly Wood: 

So let's break down some of the other aspects of it. It is a subscription pricing service includes, that includes the ship back for chicken right.

Matt Rogers: 

Right. It's, it's, it's an all included service, so the bin is included. Uh, shipping is included, any replacement charcoal filters. It has a charcoal filter built in the product to make sure there are no smells. Those are all included, support, warranty, everything you need to run this service is included in that kind of monthly fee.

Molly Wood: 

What can go in mill and what cannot? This is, let's get like a little bit nuts and bolts here.

Matt Rogers: 

You could put anything that you can eat in the mill. So like all food, meat, meat, dairy, coffee grounds. Banana peels, avocado pits, throw it all in there. Like the only food you can't put in there is like a lamb shank. Like a really thick bone of like beef or lamb, like the bone probably shouldn't go in there, but like chicken bones, fish bones, all okay.

Literally all foods. You go in there.

Molly Wood: 

Mm-hmm. You can also side note, you could also put the . Output of your meal device in your green bin if you have it right.

Matt Rogers: 

Absolutely, absolutely. If you have a green bin, uh, mill food grounds could go into it. If you're a composter, if, if you've got a backyard pile or a Tumblr, could go in your Tumblr. And actually, if you have chickens, actually, like 9% of Americans have chickens at home. You could feed this to your chickens too.

Molly Wood: 

I have, I read a whole thing about, I think in Finland, like they gave everybody chickens during the pandemic and it had this sort of unexpected side effect of reducing food waste by I. Truly astonishing amount.

Matt Rogers: 

This things used to work. is how things used to work like, uh, in like, uh, pre urban society. You know, we had chickens, we had pigs, and what we didn't eat would go to feed them. Like we didn't have food waste and. This is really a phenomenon of our, like ultra industrial and urban society. We've made it really hard otherwise, so yeah, exactly.

Like if you've got backyard chickens or you're, or you're a gardener, like you could totally use this stuff at home too.

Molly Wood: 

Got it. And then who, and thendo you have, who are the chicken farmers? Like who's buying it?

Matt Rogers: 

Oh my gosh. Our, our,

Molly Wood: 

Did you make deals? Was it like lots of chicken field trips? I just wanna know everything

Matt Rogers: 

Uh, uh, there were a lot of chicken field trips actually. Uh, our first farmer is in the Pacific Northwest and runs like a mid-size farm. A lot of free range birds and actually it's cool is like that. Their farm looks a lot like the photos that we took for our marketing. It's like one of those idyllic farms where the chickens are running around, like it's a really good farm partner and they're excited because yeah, again, like they're looking to, to carbonize their operations and feed is a key component to that.

Molly Wood: 

Right? What are the driver, what, what is making them look to decarbonize their operations? Like, are there starting to be requirements and, and reasons that this is a, a business pressure that will, know, I'm just sort of thinking about scale and how much chicken feed could potentially be replaced and food waste could be replaced, and what are the levers that make that

Matt Rogers: 

I more and more so these days, consumers want climate smart solutions. And when they're in the grocery store and they see a, a carton of eggs that says climate neutral versus the one that doesn't, they'll buy the one that says carbon neutral. Or, you know, climate positive or climate smart. Uh, uh, folks are really interested in doing the right thing, especially if it's the same price.

And case like, like we were gonna throw the food away, right? . So like, there's, there's a lot of value to that and, uh, it'd be a shame to to, to throw that food away. Much, much better to recover it. Yeah. But consumers are asking for it like this is, this is what's gonna drive the change. Like government regulations are actually more of a lagging indicator of something that's already existing and working.

And that's actually is also part of Mill's theory of change that Yes, like we're going direct to consumer and building a new service for consumers at home. But that is going to drive systems change because if . We're demonstrating that this is working in thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of homes, then cities can say, oh, this is what we should be doing too.

Ok time for a quick break … when we come back … more on how a drop becomes a flood … that road toward mass adoption … how Matt became a climate entrepreneur in the first place … after all that time at Apple … and the thing you want to know … which is how sustainable the Mill device really is.

Welcome back to Everybody in the Pool … I'm talking with Matt Rogers … the co-founder of the Nest smart thermostat and now co-founder of Mill … which is taking on food waste … at home.

Molly Wood: I sort of left us hanging on that question though, of mass adoption. So is the hope that mill will start to be the, it will be the aspirational part of this, and then it could be something that municipalities start to do and like if, look, if you can afford it, you have the pretty in-home version, but the value is so clear that there becomes sort of a mass behavior change.

Matt Rogers: 

Yes, exactly. So we're starting to build this new system and the parallels to what we did at Nester are pretty clear. So actually I'll draw the, the parallel. So at Nest we started direct to consumer. With a premium expensive product that people said, oh my gosh, $250 for a thermostat. And over time, as we proved the model and as we showed we saved energy, more and more energy companies would say, Hey, like we're gonna give you a rebate for Nest Thermostat to save energy and to be part of the smart grid and to turn down when energy's really expensive.

And now, like in most cities and regions in the country, you could get an S for almost free between the rebates and the incentives, energy companies, et cetera. So like what we're doing with Mill is we're building that consumer service that is awesome and better, better for you and better for the planet.

And going to prove to our cities, to our municipalities that this is better than what we're doing before. And we've actually even started a few of those pilots already. Uh, we've got a pilot going in Tacoma, Washington right now. Uh, and Tacoma's a city that's been doing everything right. They have a green bin for food waste.

Uh, and we're already seeing . That our Tacoma pilot participants are participating more than what came before. Half of the folks in our, our pilot didn't even use their green bin before at all. The, the first time they're ever using a food recycling service is now with Mill and they've had a green bin for 10 years.

Molly Wood: 

Right. And that, that I think is a really important thing to note because I, uh, sometimes when I talk about these solutions, you know, I am a big believer again in adoption, driving mass change and adoption starts expensive. And also the knock on some solutions like this is like, well, okay, that's great.

This is what rich people can do, and it won't, it won't become a mass solution or can't.

Matt Rogers: The, you, you were spot on. This is, this is where you start. And I was an early adopter of electric vehicles. I had a Tesla Roadster was guy like $110,000. A crazy amount of money at the time. And it didn't have a lot of range and it didn't have brakes that worked when the battery was fully charged.

And know, it's one of those things like, You know, like, but I, I, I wanted a great new EV that was a better car than what I had. And now you could buy an EV for $30,000 and there are rebates and all these other things that help support that growth. But, you know, someone's gotta get the ball started and prove the technology works.

And you know, the same is true in solar. Uh, solar used to be so expensive. So, so expensive. And now like you'd be foolish to not have solar, like, you know, solar's cheaper.

Molly Wood: 

How did you, you mentioned at the top that you and your wife have been longtime climate evangelists. How did you talk to me about your journey, like how did you come to this and what got you so

Matt Rogers: 

Oh man. Uh, uh, my wife and I have been working on this together a really long time. Uh, uh, my wife and I even campaigned for Al Gore back in 2000. like we've been doing this all together a really long time. And, we weren't married then. That was, that was, that was, we were still kids actually. Uh, But you know, like, honestly, like Al Gore and the Inconvenient Truth was a huge inspiration for, for me and for us.

Uh, it's one of the things that got me off my butt to start Nest. Uh, I was working at Apple at the time building, you know, the biggest products in humanity like the iPhone and left to take a bet on a thermostat.

Molly Wood: 

Yeah.

Matt Rogers: 

Uh, look like we don't have a lot of time. And this is one where, you know, . There's a lot of doom and gloom out there of like, Hey, like we've got nine years left to really turn the tide here.

And I'm an optimist. I think we really can do it. And, but it's gonna take motivated folks who are spending their time, their money, their energy to push towards more solutions out there. And, you know, I've, I've dedicated my life to do it. It's both like my, my business, it's also what I do in my personal life.

It's, it's like voting you, you gotta do it. And if everyone does it, it's really gonna matter. And that's what ends up moving the needle for governments.

Molly Wood: 

Yeah, and not for nothing. You also have to vote people for climate forward, candidates

Matt Rogers: 

That's right.

loud. Um,

It matters.

And then finally there's this question of what is ACTUALLY sustainable … if everyone buys a new gadget and that gadget involves mailing stuff back and forth … is it really better …

First of all … a good thing to note is that unlike even a service like Ridwell … which we talked about a few weeks back … the mail pickup is not a different delivery schedule. It's regular old U-S-P-S … which is already coming to your house … rain or shine.

And, says Matt …

Matt Rogers: 

we also have an lca, our lifecycle analysis. So if you go to mill.com/lca, you can see and learn that . A mill household can save a half a ton of emissions per year. So like even with the shipping and the manufacturing and the energy it uses, this is a very carbon negative process and it's very good for the planet.

And sometimes it's a little counterintuitive, like, oh, like how can it possibly be good to put my food grounds in a box and have someone come pick it up in the mail? It's like it's that important to keep it outta the trash.

If you're interested … you can find Mill at mill … dot com … Matt says there's a good story in how they got that amazing domain so we'll have him back to hear that …

There is also a competitor called Lomi … l - o - m - i … which processes food overnight that you take to your own compost bin or … yard … or similar … which is 499 dollars without a monthly subscription … or 399 plus 20 bucks a month to keep filters and things coming.

We'll have a couple of comparison articles in the related links.

And if NOTHING else … let the mind-blowing awareness of how big a carbon emitter food waste is … inspire you to … waste less food … maybe get a little IKEA bin for the counter … or even some chickens. This is a HUGE action … you can take … to make a big difference.

And that's it for Everybody in the Pool … Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. You can find my newsletter at mollywood dot co and email your thoughts … reactions … and ideas … to in … at everybody in the pool dot com.

Remember … together … we can get this done. 

See you next week.