The Kroger Co.'s 2017-born Zero Hunger | Zero Waste social impact plan has a new element, thanks to a partnership with Cintrifuse.
For the uninitiated, Kroger's social impact plan looks to "end hunger in its communities and eliminate waste across the company by 2025." Specifically, that means donating 1 billion meals to food banks affiliated to Feeding America by 2020 and 3 billion meals by 2025, as well as a $10 Million Zero Hunger | Zero Waste Innovation Fund that looks to fund "transformative technologies, breakthrough science and business models" to help spur its overall goals.
And now, enter Spry Labs, the Cintrifuse-born venture-building studio (that still lives in Union Hall) to help Kroger with its goals.
Together, the two entities are hosting the Zero Hunger | Zero Waste OPEN. It's a national competition that looks to "recruit outside innovators and discover the brightest minds working to end hunger and eliminate food waste." Winners will receive $10,000 in cash prizes from Kroger, as well as opportunities to meet leaders in the company's related fields.
Kroger outlined that the innovations will look to do the following:
- Help consumers understand and minimize their impact on waste
- Solutions for experimenting on the shelf and in the store to change waste
- Align incentives and logistics to impact waste reduction
- Better tools to forecast and optimization data to reduce waste
- Optimize the farm-to-store value chain to reduce waste
Participants will be judged on their ability to deliver a minimum viable project, their pitch and a company history and information on funding maturity, if applicable. Judges include Kroger leadership and both food and social enterprise leaders.
The event will occur at Union Hall from Nov. 27 at 12 p.m. to Nov. 28 at 12:30 p.m., at which point a winner will be chosen.
