When Epic Renewal co-founders B. Baba and Tess Feigenbaum first met in Rhode Island years ago, they took advantage the burgeoning network of composting options through places like EcoRI’s compost pickup, educational programs and more.
But when the pair moved to Los Angeles in 2016, Feigenbaum said, they discovered a clear need for affordable and easy composting solutions like those they had become familiar with. Now, having relaunched the business in Rhode Island in 2019, Feigenbaum said the company is set to enter a new phase.
In addition to growing composting operations in Central Falls and Pawtucket, Epic Renewal is hard at work on new software to help composters effectively manage their composting sites across team members and locations, as well as track key impact data points that illustrate the larger societal impact of the work.
“The simplified takeaway of this is that this technology allows us to paint the full picture of how your food scraps can close the loop and support nutritious and accessible produce from local sources,” Feigenbaum said. “Throughout our work, and that of our peers, we’ve seen a clear need for tools to optimize processes, and help us collect the data we need to tell our story and establish our work as a critical infrastructure solution to address climate change.”
Feigenbaum said Epic Renewal is going “full steam ahead” with development and are targeting a Q2 release for the android software followed by Q4 for the IOS side.
Over the last year, the company has also partnered with the California Alliance of Community Composters as part of CalRecycle’s Community Composting for Green Spaces grant, which was a statewide composting initiative including over 100 community composters.
“There is a huge need for driven people to get involved with solving the various challenges of sustainably managing our organic waste and solving the climate crisis in general. We are of the mindset that there is always more room at the table to complete this work,” she said.
Feigenbaum said the collaboration allowed them to conduct user research and begin initial development on the android track of mobile development. Leading up to the compost conference, they have been focused on bringing the app to a state where initial users could begin trying it out on their phones and in their work. In late January, Feigenbaum said Epic Renewal presented their work at the annual compost conference hosted by the US Composting Council.
“We were very honored to represent our state, and share our work with the national community,” she said. “Even in our early rollout, we are seeing incredibly positive feedback from the greater community composters. We were deeply humbled by just how much our community is eager to start working with this tool. It was a truly inspiring experience and is giving us even more motivation to push this work forward.”
Feigenbaum said since Epic Renewal was founded, the market has blossomed from around 100 organizations like theirs throughout the United States, to today, where there are more than 250. Epic Renewal categorize themselves as a community-scale composter, trying to divert organics from landfill, while building healthy soils to combat climate change and benefit communities on the whole.
From the start, Epic Renewal has used bokashi fermentation to compost indoors and in lesser-used spaces. During their time on the West Coast, the company grew, offering compost collection and processing throughout the larger Los Angeles area, and serving clients such as LUSH cosmetics and the RealReal’s luxury consignment store in Hollywood, as well as over 200 residential households.
In 2019, the pair brought Epic Renewal back to Rhode Island, relaunching the business around composting services for home, business, and events. Feigenbaum said the company provides signage and clean containers for our customers to collect their food waste, and swap them for clean ones each week. Epic Renewal also offers zero waste consulting to help people further shrink their carbon footprint.
According to Feigenbaum, composting services have covered the overhead of running the day-to-day operations, but she and Baba are looking to widen the scope of their funding, particularly on the technology front, as they continue to grow.
“On the composting side, we are expanding our clients and partners to process even more organic material and provide compost back to the community,” she said. “This will involve increasing our composting capacity and ideally, acquiring more decentralized processing locations, as well as expanding our community partnerships to ensure we’re supporting everyone equitably. We are also seeing growing demand for our zero waste consulting and events services. As we bring on more clients and partners, we look forward to bringing on new staff to our team.”
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