We love hearing how restaurants and other foodservice operators continue to make
impressive strides when it comes to reducing food waste — from redirecting
leftover product to
consumers
and other
operators
or, worst case, turning unused product into
fuel.
But some common, wasteful aspects of commercial food production seem to have largely flown under
the radar, both in terms of press and potential solutions — for example, fry
oil, which is reportedly a top-three food
cost
for restaurants; every year, restaurants and commercial fryers spend an
estimated $80 billion on it. And aside from the financial expense, overused fry
oil apparently carries some unique sustainability implications.
Enter Louisville-based startup FreshFry — which has
developed an upcycled, biobased Pod that extends the life of commercial frying
oil, cutting costs by 25 percent. But FreshFry aims to offer more than extended
oil life.
“I want our customers to feel confident that they can make the claim that they
just did something great,” CEO Jeremiah Chapman told Sustainable
Brands™. “With all major global brands, it comes down to the supply
chain and having this faith.”
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FreshFry Pods are the first and only biobased, self-contained oil-filtration product on the market. The Pods, made primarily from rice agricultural waste, are dropped into frying oil to remove contaminants — extending service life and maintaining oil quality. FreshFry currently serves thousands of restaurants and pilot projects in the US and Canada, Chapman says; he estimates FreshFry Pods have eliminated over 11 million pounds of oil waste.
Chapman says the idea for FreshFry came
while he was studying Chemical Engineering at the University of Louisville:
“I would convert old oil from restaurants to biodiesel and it was completely
degraded when I got it. I remembered when I was a kid, my grandmother would use
potatoes to clean cooking oil after frying fish and a light bulb went off. I
furiously researched how to use plant scraps to clean oil for years, developed a
product — then showed it to a chef and it failed miserably. But the chef
explained to me why it failed and what really mattered to him — food quality and
safe operations. In that kitchen, FreshFry was born. Chefs enabled FreshFry to
transform plants into Pods that help keep food quality high and operations
safe.”
Economics, science and frying oil
For a variety of reasons — including successive dry summers that have stunted
yields, the rise of
biodiesel
competing for soybean oil, and the war in
Ukraine
— sky-high vegetable oil
prices
aren’t likely retreating soon. Yet, consumer demand for fries and other go-to
comfort foods won’t cool off anytime soon; so, many commercial oil customers now
face signups and waiting lists.
Fry-oil
life
can be extended through filtering, but with limited success. The average
restaurant disposes of oil every three to five days; and by then, it’s torched
(and diners can taste the difference). From there, waste oil is sold to animal
feed suppliers or converted into fuel. But because vegetable oil has become so
expensive, operators are keeping it longer than they should — and in addition to
affecting flavor, it’s bad for human
health.
Vegetable oil, a triglyceride, breaks down when exposed to high temperatures,
oxygen, acids and water. The breakaway segments float around and bond to other
material — forming a Frankenstein of molecular chains, creating unsavory flavors
and odors. If enough breakaway chains bond together, they'll form a resin and
burn, causing people-harming smoke and climate-harming emissions smoke.
Filtering oil alone, Chapman said, won't prevent the polymerization that's so
harmful to food quality and human health.
FreshFry Pods capture these rogue chains before they have a chance to bond. The
Pods — filled with plant shells sourced from agricultural waste — are designed
to be left in a fryer overnight to remove water, acid and metals; and prevent
polymerization. FreshFry Pods can extend the service life of oil an additional
two to three days; Chapman says squeezing two extra days of service life
translates to savings of $1,000 per year, per fryer, factoring in the cost of
the Pods.
“Not only are you getting an extension in days, but the quality of the oil is
high throughout; and you're much less likely to keep it too long, to where
you're serving food coming out of bad oil,” he said.
FreshFry reported even better results for fryers that operate at consistent
temperatures and fry only select foods.
Eliminating climate impacts, as well as bad food
Though the young company doesn’t yet have an established ag-waste supply chain, it is actively building relationships with sustainable farms as it scales. The company is also investigating how to measure and pass on environmental value to customers so they can start chipping away at their scope 3 emissions, one FreshFry Pod at a time. FreshFry is watching closely what kind of science-based targets companies are adopting, and is setting its own baselines to get a head start.
FreshFry is in the midst of conducting a full lifecycle analysis in pilot
projects. But Chapman says the company’s most important internal metric is
redeployed waste: According to three separate material tests, each Pod upcycles almost three-quarters of a pound of agricultural scraps, containing 85 percent upcycled agricultural waste and sequestering about .1 pounds of carbon per pod. The remaining 15 percent is composed of virgin cellulose binders. The company aspires to eventually redeploy 10-15 pounds of upcycled agricultural waste per pod, and consist of 100 percent upcycled content.
As a plus, clean electricity is a byproduct of Pod production. Rice waste — a high-moisture, high-energy product — undergoes a controlled activation during production, which emits heat. This thermal energy is converted into electricity and sent back into the grid. The company says this is just the beginning.
As of December 2021, FreshFry has redeployed 10 million pounds of agricultural
waste.
Chapman sees FreshFry as a driver for scaled change; and he wants to create a
new, global market for agricultural waste.
“Not only does it make sense for people’s profit, but the people who use it and
the planet it comes from,” he said.
FreshFry is actively seeking pilot partnerships in the industrial food space.
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Christian is a writer, photographer, filmmaker, and outdoor junkie obsessed with the intersectionality between people and planet. He partners with brands and organizations with social and environmental impact at their core, assisting them in telling stories that change the world.
Published Apr 5, 2022 8am EDT / 5am PDT / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST