Innovation awards presented by Canadian Business magazine shown the spotlight on Burnaby, B.C. robotics firm Trendi, which has developed a way to turn food waste into freeze-dried ingredients.
Founded by juicer enthusiast Carissa Campeotto and chef Craig McIntosh, Trendi was aimed to dramatically reduce the massive amount of food produce waste. Incredibly, an estimated 58 percent of food produced is lost or wasted in Canada annually, costing the economy more than $49 billion annually.
The duo’s solution was to go directly to the source. The company’s trucks are equipped with custom-designed robotic machinery that will collect, clean, process and package damaged or leftover produce, transforming the food into shelf-stable, freeze-dried powdered ingredients for use in packaged foods, pharmaceuticals, animal feed, cosmetics and more.
Trendi has one of its ‘BioTrim’ units at a B.C. farm and another in Ecuador, while smoothie machines using thier powders are scattered throughout the Vancouver International Airport. Ten more machines are scheduled to appear in other locations in the province later this year.
Last year, Trendi received $85K from Canadian Food Innovation Network in 2022 to support the upcycling smoothie machine project.