Last week, I spoke to Taylor Quinn. At his social enterprise Tailored Food, he’s on a mission to end world hunger.

And he’s doing that through local nutrition entrepreneurship.

In the last 5 years, they’ve sold over a million meals to the extremely poor across the world.

So how do they do that?

They find the most ambitious entrepreneurs across the world. Pair them up with food industry experts. Together, they design, launch, and grow nutritious low-cost food products in the target countries.

Here are some of their projects-

🥜 First low-cost nutritious peanut butter in Mozambique

🍪 Protein-rich, locally-produced full-meal biscuit products in Ethiopia

🍢 Soy-based ground ‘beef’ in Brazil

All the ingredients required to make these products are available in the respective countries. That brings down the cost to manufacture and transport.

What a novel solution! I would love to see a world where hunger doesn’t exist

Tailored Food

In this section of the newsletter, I am planning to share more stories like this- individuals (and not really startups) trying to make a positive impact.

Moving onto this week’s content. So today, we have👇🏽

• A startup that’s challenging the incumbent of bedding industry-cotton

• Another startup that’s revolutionizing the animal feed industry

• Some good news

• Can I cover your story?

🛏️ Sheets that help you sleep better and are good for the planet

Not the best…I’ve worked in the sleep industry for a few years and saw firsthand how synonymous cotton is with the bedding industry. But the excessive use of pesticides and insecticides and the enormous amount of water required to grow cotton makes it one of the dirtiest crops. Bamboo is an incredible alternative given that it’s highly regenerative but there’s a problem with how it’s been handled so far…

So…Bamboo is a resource-efficient plant but toxic chemicals are used to convert it into fibres. Phoebe Yu wanted to use a cleaner version of bamboo for making sheets, pillowcases and duvet covers at ettitude. So she spent years researching, refining and developing CleanBamboo™. It is sourced from FSC-certified sustainable forests and made in a non-toxic, closed-loop system that recycles 98% of water. Thye call it vegan silk because of its soft, smooth and luxurious texture

• The material uses 500x less water than cotton.

• Also, the carbon emissions are 52% fewer than cotton.

• And does not use any toxic chemicals, reducing the impact on the planet and human health

Wholesome…ettitude publishes an annual impact report highlighting its impact on the environment and society. It has been measuring, reducing and offsetting all of its carbon production and is Carbon Neutral certified. Also, for BIPOC students interested in sustainability, it has a Good For Everyone Scholarship.

Check out ettitude

🐛 Revolutionizing the animal feed industry

Unless we all stop eating meat…We consume other species for our protein requirements. And they are fed with soy for their protein requirement. To grow soy, large areas of forests are cleared, leading to deforestation. A great alternative to this is insects. They are a high protein, low carbon alternative that can be used as animal feed. They can also be fed on food waste (solving another problem) and their excrement can be used as fertilizer.

Here’s the thing…It’s hard for humans to manage billions of insects in an animal farm manually. Knowing stats like accurate head counts, and how much feed should be used is key to the process. And that’s where Entocycle comes in. It’s a technology company that helps insect farmers (especially the ones farming black soldier flies) automate tasks like keeping a head count or providing the right amount of feed.

• They do so through their flagship product Entocycle Neo.

• It’s a combination of hardware and software and performs functions such as weighing and counting larvae.

• This ensures that the correct amount of feed is provided, which improves insect growth and reduces their mortality rates.

  

For now… it only focuses on the black soldier fly (BSF) due to its industrial prevalence and Entocycle’s deep understanding of BSF’s biological process. Entocycle works with insect farming companies and waste upcycling companies that want to increase their efficiencies.

Check out Entocycle

😹 Some Good News

🚲 Pedal Power: Spain offers workers more dough for less driving

🍫 Vegan Chocoholics Rejoice: Reese’s launches plant-based peanut butter cups

🚌 Free Rides for DC: Zero-fare bus bill gets green light

Shoutout to Aakanksha for making this punny

🔦Can I cover your story?

If you’re a brand that has planet Earth as a stakeholder, here are a few ways in which I can help you-

1. Cover your story in the newsletter and in a LinkedIn post. It’s completely FREE!

2. Help you with your long-form content- newsletters, blogs and articles

I'm interested

Thanks for reading today’s edition. If you have any thoughts or questions, feel free to write to me by replying to this email.

Have a great weekend and see you next week😊