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FreshPaper: The Only Thing Lean About Your Thanksgiving

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(Credit: FreshPaper)

The only thing that Americans are thinking about this week is food. Thanksgiving always ranks high among people’s favorite holidays. Lots of food, family and football to watch.  My hometown of Wayland, MA will be playing rival Weston on Thanksgiving for the 80th time on Thursday.

But Friday belongs to Fenugreen.   This impressive startup, launched in Boston but based in the Washington DC area, has developed an impressive solution for storing food in a manner that is cost-effective, environmentally friendly, and socially beneficial.  This year, I am thankful for Fenugreen and a new breed of startups around the country addressing the major societal challenges of food waste, packaging and the health of Americans.  More importantly, they are giving me a great new option for storing and carrying my Thanksgiving leftovers.

Food spoilage and waste are two of the more challenging, and frustrating problems we face in the world today.  We already produce enough food to feed every human on the planet.  But through a combination of inefficiencies in price, logistics, productivity and international diplomacy, we still have nearly two billion tons of food wasted and spoiled annually.  We have an additional one billion humans that do not have access to proper refrigeration or fresh food.

In the United States, food storage is an important cause of our nation’s obesity crisis.  It starts with the fact that processed foods and junk food are much easier to package, seal and keep edible for longer periods of time than fruits and vegetables.    This, along with the rushed eating habits of Americans, leads to a larger consumption of pre-packaged foods.  In addition, we waste a ton of money on energy to refrigerate foods that are then allowed to spoil.

Fenugreen and similar companies are aiming to address these challenges.  Launched by Kavita Shukla and Swaroop Samant in 2010, Fenugreen’ s signature product, FreshPaper, is a biodegradable, compostable and recyclable product made from natural ingredients – fenugreek in particular.  It looks like paper, but is in fact made from spices.  FreshPaper can be used to store foods for up to four times longer than other food storage options. This can translate to nearly a week without spoilage for some foods.

As we have learned over the last few years, there is a large and growing market for products like these.  So it’s no surprise that FreshPaper is now available at Whole Foods, Wegman’s and Big Y across the Northeastern United States.   Through the Internet, Fenugreen now export’s to thirty five countries around the world – where consumers have found new applications for FreshPaper – from catering to stuffing gift bags.  Ever the socially responsible company, Fenugreen also uses a disabled workforce at its production center and has started educational programs at DC area middle schools

For their breakthrough product, Fenugreen has been awarded a huge number of awards from design, food and media organizations around the world.

As with most successful startups, Fenugreen is addressing the challenges that comes with rapid growth.  They will need to grow their team, recruit more senior management with experience in food services, think about product scalability, and how to greatly increase the capacity of farmers to become reliable suppliers.  And as I have mentioned before, it is even more difficult in the social enterprise sector.  While there is loads of capital, management talent and experienced vendors/suppliers with in traditional food and agriculture product areas, there is less so for the types of products that are environmentally friendly and socially beneficial.  This is the challenge that Fenugreen and countless other startups are facing around the world.  How do we scale products and services that can truly benefit society and the planet by utilizing the great business models of the past, but without replicating their excesses and damages to the environment?  How do they maintain their social mission when faced with investors seeking better returns and the use of cheaper, less environmentally friendly materials? It is not yet a question to which we have lots of answers.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  Final score, Wayland 24, Weston 14.