Circular Economy Innovation & Technology

SBIO Winner Fenugreen Poised to Change the World - Could Your Startup Do the Same?

By Courtney Pankrat | Published 13 years ago | About a 2 minute read

It’s been only a few months since Fenugreen won the Innovation Open at the Sustainable Brands ’13 conference, but you wouldn’t know it based on their momentum and accomplishments since. Since winning SBIO, the company’s brilliantly simple product, FreshPaper, has been featured on NBC’s Today Show, Bloomberg, CNN, Dr. Oz and on Oprah’s Wow List. Founder Kavita Shukla, who started Fenugreen to launch the product she developed as a teenager, was also featured in the Women in the World Foundation conference and earlier this year was named one of Newsweek’s 125 women of impact. And just last week, FreshPaper won the INDEX award — the world's largest prize for design, presented by Her Royal Highness the Crown Princess of Denmark (previous winners include Apple and Tesla).

FreshPaper, which looks like an ordinary square of paper, extends the life of fresh produce up to 2-4 times. Shukla has worked for the past few years to fine-tune the paper’s blend of spices, which helps significantly delay the rate at which fresh fruits and vegetables spoil. According to the Fenugreen site, 25% of food worldwide is wasted because of spoilage and with their mission, “Fresh for all,” Fenugreen is poised to drastically reduce that amount. With that in mind, Fenugreen is matching every FreshPaper purchase with a donation of FreshPaper to a local food bank, beginning with those in communities affected by Hurricane Sandy.

Shukla and co. first began selling FreshPaper at Massachusetts farmers’ markets in 2010. The product is now available in Whole Foods stores nationwide, with more stores coming soon.

At Sustainable Brands, we take pride in aiding and promoting innovative startups, and we are pleased to announce that we are bringing the SB Innovation Open to London this year. The competition will be held at the SB London conference and judged by Jo Confino, Executive Editor of Guardian Sustainable Business; Fiona Bennie, Head of Sustainability at Dragon Rouge; Eli Rabek, Partnerships Manager at YouNoodle, SB CEO/founder KoAnn Vikoren Skrzyniarz; and Christopher Sveen, Director of Business Development at Monday Morning Sustainia.