Chicago startup Hazel Technologies' entire business philosophy revolves around sustainability. The company has created a packaging insert that helps produce stay fresh longer, and it works with customers like Mission Produce---the world's largest distributor of avocados---to help extend the shelf life of fruits and vegetables.
The irony is that the startup, while testing its technology, wastes a lot of food.
To perfect its packaging inserts, which are dropped inside produce shipments and release an anti-fungal vapor used to keep food staying fresh, Hazel will sometimes test entire pallets of produce at a time.
To keep from simply tossing the rotten fruit aside, Hazel decided to take an innovative approach to its decaying produce---turn it into booze.
"They way we do product development is quite literally watching produce, with and without our product, go bad," Hazel CMO Pat Flynn said. "In the name of making this technology better, we’re actually wasting a ton of produce."
Starting around six months ago, the startup realized that it could ferment its used produce to make a variety of alcoholic beverages. It began by fermenting plantains for several weeks into a beer. The beer was later distilled into the first Hazel liquor---plantain whiskey. Other boozy beverages Hazel has made include apricot brandy, raspberry mead, limoncello, pisco, grappa, and calvados.
Hazel, which last year raised a $3.2 million seed round, does not sell its spirits. So as of now the only beneficiaries of the in-house alcohol are employees, customers, and lucky of-age visitors who come to the startup's HQ at Illinois Tech's 35th street campus. Hazel bottles the spirits in 375 ml bottles and its marketing team even designed a Hazel label for the outside.
Hazel does not currently sell its liquors, which are as high as 50 percent ABV, Flynn said, adding that in the future that could become part of its business. The startup has received requests from customers to buy the products, and restauranteurs have inquired about offering Hazel's liquors on their menus.
"For now, it's mainly tongue-in-cheek," Flynn said. "But we’ve had people who’d say they’d buy cases and cases."
