Food Foundry Accelerator Demo Day 2021

The Food Foundry is a Chicago-based accelerator program by Relish Works built in partnership with Gordon Food Service and 1871. The Food Foundry supports, connects, and propels startups who are rethinking the restaurant industry, food tech, and the way food moves to our tables.

Food Foundry Cohort 3 kicked off virtually in May 2021 and this event is a celebration of the founders and the future of the food industry. Listen to stories, learn more about the incredible businesses taking shape in the industry, and even have an opportunity to win some fun prizes.

Forever Ware Pitch

I want to tell you about a trip that I took around the world that changed my life. Of 14 countries, Bali was easily the best and worst part of my trip. I fondly remember tasting passion fruit right off the tree while touring the rice patties with this nice man that made my hat. I saw colorful dances and candlelit shadow puppet shows, but I also saw this.

This is the coast of Bali covered in trash. I didn’t know it then, but this happens yearly and fills Kuta beach with 20 tons of ocean trash per day for three months. At that time, I was a newly trained ocean scuba diver. This heartbreaking visual and the impact on the marine ecosystem really stuck with me.

So I transitioned to a zero-waste lifestyle. My partner and I even built a tiny home in a school bus. But I quickly became depleted because zero-waste was hard, and research was confirming that it was pretty much impossible. Of more than 20 billion disposable containers thrown away each year in the US, I was surprised that virtually none could be recycled or composted due to coatings that contaminate compost and leach into our meals.

So I avoided single-use packaging. And one of my strategies was to dine in at restaurants and bring my own containers for leftovers, but I consistently forgot them and I often felt really embarrassed.

Then when covid shut down all indoor dining, I was back to square one. I desperately wanted to help keep my favorite restaurants open, and my only option was to order takeout in disposable containers that I knew weren’t safe for my health or the planet so…. I decided to solve the problem.

Hi, I’m Natasha Gaffer, CEO and Co-founder of Forever Ware and my team is working on a city-wide reuse system for trash-free takeout and delivery. With Forever Ware, I can now order from a restaurant like Chipotle and request my meal in a free, reusable bowl that’s made of steel and silicone. The containers aren’t just safe for our health and the planet, they’re better: designed to prevent leaks, insulated to regulate temps, AND overall more enjoyable than eating out of, well, garbage. So much so that research shows that food is perceived to taste better.

And it’s also really easy to use. Simply order, enjoy, and return. I just have to provide my phone number at checkout, and if I don’t have a Forever Ware account I can easily pay a refundable $5 deposit. The containers can be taken with me to enjoy and later returned to any participating business.

Compared to competitors, we don’t require consumers to download an app, pay for a plan or scan containers with their phone all before ever trying the system. Forever Ware eliminates these barriers to entry with an experience that is provided by the restaurant.

During a pilot we did in 2020, we heard from restaurants that THEY want to own the customer experience, so we partnered with six pilot restaurants to build them the tools that they need to offer reusables to THEIR customers. Early metrics show 25% consumer adoption and increased foot traffic between restaurants in our network.

We call the new system reusables-as-a-service and it includes software and smart return stations to track customer checkouts. Behind the scenes: merchants: fill, track, commercially sanitize and restock the containers in-house. Forever Ware is mostly hands-off and we make it really simple for merchants to get started by walking them through an automated onboarding process. We ship out a starter kit and provide self-guided resources on how to integrate Forever Ware into their existing processes and platforms.

And the market for our product is huge. Restaurants go through an estimated 18,000 disposable containers per year at about 25-cents each. We expect to replace half of these based on research about consumers that report that they are more likely to buy a product if it is eco-friendly. Forever Ware is a 1:1 replacement for the cost of disposables and our proprietary tracking system is what makes it possible to offer our product for the same price as compostable alternatives. Of 1.1M restaurants in the US, 56% are sold on the idea and already offering eco-friendly packaging options. Which is a $1.6B TAM.

To achieve this mission, we have a founding team of software and hardware engineers with corporate experience as well as a growing list of mentors and advisors.

So far, we’ve:

• raised $122,000
• diverted more than 6000 containers from landfill
• We have a waiting list of restaurants and cities
• and we’ll soon dip into the fast-casual space to increase volume.
• We’re in the process of rolling out phase two of our asset tracking software which will provide valuable metrics.
• The final phase 3 will go out this fall at which point we’ll switch to sales and begin to scale.

We’re interested in connecting with investors and growing our team of advisors. Join us and help save the world one meal at a time.