Reducing Food Waste: Allyson Straka of Frozen Garden On How They Are Helping To Eliminate Food Waste
At Frozen Garden we donate 100 percent of our scraps/waste to one of our farmers, Great Inspirations Farm, for composting which reduces landfill waste and incineration, and therefore emissions. Great Inspirations Farm uses this compost to feed the soil that grows the kale, spinach, cucumbers (and more!) that we use in our products.
It has been estimated that each year, more than 100 billion pounds of food is wasted in the United States. That equates to more than $160 billion worth of food thrown away each year. At the same time, in many parts of the United States, there is a crisis caused by people having limited access to healthy & affordable food options. The waste of food is not only a waste of money and bad for the environment, but it is also making vulnerable populations even more vulnerable.
Authority Magazine started a new series called “How Restaurants, Grocery Stores, Supermarkets, Hospitality Companies and Food Companies Are Helping To Eliminate Food Waste.” In this interview series, we are talking to leaders and principals of Restaurants, Grocery Stores, Supermarkets, Hospitality Companies, Food Companies, and any business or nonprofit that is helping to eliminate food waste, about the initiatives they are taking to eliminate or reduce food waste.
As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Allyson Straka, Founder and Chief Smoothie Officer, Frozen Garden.
From real food to natural products, Allyson Straka has been living a natural lifestyle for more than 15 years. Allyson is a Holistic Health Educator who left her corporate career in software programming to help people reduce their consumption of processed foods and give them access to real, whole food. In 2016, she created Frozen Garden, offering frozen, ready to blend Smoothies as a convenient solution to healthy eating, without chemicals or additives, to make living a healthy lifestyle easier. Allyson has since expanded the company and now offers three product lines in addition to Smoothies: Fusion beverage infusers, guilt-free Delites and Overnight Oats.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
When I was pregnant with my oldest daughter, I really started to take a look at what we put into our bodies and what was actually in our food. After having my second daughter, I left my corporate job in software programming to become a Holistic Health Educator. My goal was to work with people to help them eat less processed foods and more real food. I became frustrated when my clients complained about not being able to find convenient, nutrient dense food at the grocery store and that there was no time to get into the kitchen and cook from scratch. I decided to turn that frustration into inspiration and change the food industry to prove it is possible to make real food convenient without any supplements, powders or gimmicks.
In the beginning, I found local farmers to partner with, developed recipes, figured out the best way to chop produce so it would blend in any type of blender — even a $19 one from Kmart — and started selling Smoothies out of a small office in the Spring of 2016. As Frozen Garden continues to grow, everything we do is for our customers. I believe everyone deserves the opportunity to have plant-based, nutrient dense frozen foods made with real ingredients available to them.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began at your company or organization?
A few years ago, I started getting contacted by major corporations that were interested in having us create private label Smoothies for their companies. I was blown away because 1. We are a small, local business and 2. all of our marketing and online efforts were consumer focused.
As we started to learn more about their goals, I found out that these companies were interested in working with a small company because they didn’t want to make a large investment to test out a product or concept through a traditional co-packer that required large runs and purchasing a lot of ingredients upfront. Because we were a smaller company, we were able to be flexible and offer smaller, customized runs with no upfront investment with the ability to scale, if needed.
As this side of the business has grown, we now have a website focused on offering private label, co-packing and 3PL services that focuses on regional startup frozen food companies.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Looking back over the years, the funniest mistake is assuming that people would know that “Frozen Garden” meant that the product was frozen. We had grocery stores put our deliveries in the refrigerator not knowing that it should be kept frozen. We had customers receive frozen deliveries (with dry ice mind you) and then put the products in their pantry. We’ve worked really had to make sure that all of our packing and marketing materials have messaging all over the place stating that our products must be put directly into the freezer and kept frozen until ready to eat.
How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?
I’ve worked for various companies in all different sizes with different types of leadership. I’ve also learned a lot from my dad, who is also an entrepreneur. Through all of those experiences, I’ve come to realize leadership is nurturing people, employees and teammates to be the best they can be in their job. It’s also enabling them to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. One of the things I like to pride myself on is not getting angry or yelling at an employee when they make a mistake — and boy have we had some big ones. From employees leaving freezers open to having to give away product for free because the team used a wrong ingredient or even someone breaking equipment. As a business owner you just see dollar bills flying out the door, but I also work hard to keep myself composed and let them know it’s ok, mistakes happen and let that serve as a teachable moment. My overall goal is that when they decide to move on to a new company or opportunity, they feel like their skillset has grown and that in some way, their experience at Frozen Garden has moved them to the next level of their career.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
My favorite life lesson quote is, “Not all who wander are lost”.
A good friend of mine actually gave me a t-shirt with that quote on it before I embarked on my second long distance hike on the Appalachian Trail. Later in life, the quote was still relevant when I started Frozen Garden. As I mentioned before, I have a background in software. I hold a degree in Business (Computer Information Systems) from Indiana University and I spent my whole career working for start-up software companies and even ended up at Microsoft in Seattle. So, going out and starting a frozen food company was not something I (or probably anyone else) would envision as my path in life. But, what’s really great about life is that you can change directions and “wander” whenever you want. In order to be an entrepreneur, you have to be able to wander and explore areas of your business to see what fits and what doesn’t.
OK, thank you for all of that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. Let’s begin with a basic definition of terms so that all of us are on the same page. What exactly are we talking about when we refer to food waste?
When referring to food water, we’re talking about food that is not consumed and thrown away either at the farm, food manufacturers or in people’s homes. We also consider any food scraps that are not composted to be food waste.
Can you help articulate a few of the main causes of food waste?
Yes, there are many levels or layers to food waste including:
- At the farmer level. Mainstream America is so used to only buying cucumbers and other produce that is the perfect size and shape. What many don’t realize is that produce is grown to be all different kinds of shapes and sizes so what happens is that much of those misshapen fruits and vegetables are thrown away.
- At the grocery level. When food gets close to expiring, grocery stores throw it out. There’s a lot of debate when it comes to expiration dates especially when a product says, “sell by” or “use by”, but we as a society have been trained that no matter what it says, as soon as it gets to the date stamped on the packaging, it’s rotten, spoiled or just no good. When it comes to fresh foods, a lot is wasted because of what I mentioned above, consumers seeing the items as “ugly” or even noticing a small bruise or blemish, which can happen as the product ages or even during the shipping process. While natural, this turns consumers away from wanting to purchase the product, thus leaving it to be wasted.
- At home. This is actually a huge problem. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) estimates that the average American family throws out approximately 25 percent of the food and beverages they buy. This is caused by people buying food and never cooking it which leaves it to go bad or throwing out leftovers that go uneaten.
What are a few of the obstacles that companies and organizations face when it comes to distributing extra or excess food? What can be done to overcome those barriers?
I think the largest barrier is food companies (restaurants, bakeries, stores, etc.) are afraid of being sued if someone gets sick from the food they provided.
Other obstacles include the time and leg work it takes to research where to donate food. They have to find out what types of food are accepted and if they will take the food a company is trying to donate. Cost is another factor. Sometimes it’s cheaper to throw food out than have the added cost of loading up and hauling food to drop-off locations. And sometimes donations centers only serve ready-to-eat food, which means even more added costs on the companies end to cook and prepare the leftover food or ingredients.
Then there’s what I would call “food fatigue”. This is where too much of a certain item is being donated such as cereal or bread. Many times, the people accepting donations may no longer have interest in that specific food item and it gets wasted anyway.
In effort to overcome these barriers, I think education is key. First, educating companies and letting them know about the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act signed into federal law by President Clinton in 1996, stating that anyone donating food can’t be held liable as long as there was no gross negligence or intentional misconduct.
Secondly, I think local non-profits who accept donations should reach out to local food companies and let them know what can be donated and how. This kind of outreach and education can be extremely powerful.
Can you describe a few of the ways that you or your organization are helping to reduce food waste?
At Frozen Garden we donate 100 percent of our scraps/waste to one of our farmers, Great Inspirations Farm, for composting which reduces landfill waste and incineration, and therefore emissions. Great Inspirations Farm uses this compost to feed the soil that grows the kale, spinach, cucumbers (and more!) that we use in our products.
We also don’t care about “ugly” produce we get from our farmers. Whether it’s a bunch of tiny apples, gigantic zucchini, ball-shaped cucumbers or crooked carrots — we’ll always gladly take them off our farmer’s hands because we know that they won’t affect the flavor profile or consistency of our products. They’re just as good as the “pretty” produce.
Because we do all of the work — from prepping the ingredients to designing all of the recipes — there is no prep, mess or even rotting food in the fridge that our customers have to deal with or throw out. Plus, frozen food is less wasteful because it can last indefinitely when stored properly in a freezer. For maximum quality we do suggest consuming our products within a year of purchase.
Are there three things the community/society/politicians can do to help address the root of this problem?
Yes. Just as we donate our food scraps, communities can create composting programs to encourage their residents to donate individual food waste.
Communities can also organize local farmers markets, which would allow locals to purchase fresh food grown locally. This means that consumers are buying foods that have been grown closer and picked at peak ripeness versus being hauled across the country on a hot truck and once purchased those crops are closer to an “expiration date”.
From a societal standpoint, we all could do a better job of meal planning and only buying the amount of food that we need for a specified amount of time rather than always trying to have our refrigerators and pantries packed with food, which may end up becoming food waste.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
1. You will try many things that will fail. In the six years since we’ve been I business, we’ve tried so many different avenues to sell our ready to blend Smoothies that didn’t end up working. We had a retail storefront, a kiosk in the local YMCA, partnerships with distributors to sell our products in grocery stores and even attending tradeshows all over the country to build brand awareness. While these avenues may be successful for others, it just didn’t work for us. But that’s also how you learn.
2. Some people will call your “baby” ugly. In the beginning it was hard for me to read negative reviews or emails from customers because I felt it meant they didn’t love our Smoothies as much as I did. But we have learned so much from those negative reviews. Today, we connect with our long-time customers and some that even have strong opinions about our products to gain feedback on new flavors and product lines.
3. In today’s eCommerce world, people don’t view companies as real people. People like to sit behind a computer screen and be critical and, at times, even nasty to you or toward your company on social media or email for no reason. What they don’t realize is that there’s always a human on the other end and that we’re not some abstract company. But our philosophy is killing them with kindness and that usually gets them to change their tune pretty quickly.
4. There will always be ups and down. I have naively thought that just the first two to three years would be tough on a new business when in reality you are dealing with bumps in the road all the time. Who could have ever predicted a global pandemic? You are constantly having to reassess and adjust your business plan all the time.
5. Being the owner is the least glamorous position of all. Even after six years, I still find myself shivering in the walk-in freezers organizing shelves for hours, mopping the floors or jumping up and down in the recycling dumpster to make more room…no job is too big or too small for the owner. One of my mantras is I will never ask anyone to do anything that I’m not willing to do myself.
Are there other leaders or organizations who have done good work to address food waste? Can you tell us what they have done? What specifically impresses you about their work? Perhaps we can reach out to them to include them in this series.
The first few that come to mind are Misfits Market and Imperfect Foods. They are really making great strides in fighting the food waste movement, especially by trying to make “ugly” produce trendy and in sustainable ways.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
My Marketing Director may quit over this one but get rid of social media. Maybe it’s because I’m getting older, but I’d love to get people back to actually talking to each other face to face.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
Two that come to mind are Sara Blakely of Spanx or Bethany Frankel of SkinnyGirl. I always learn so much from other female entrepreneurs (of all levels) and this has been incredibly beneficial in my journey. There’s just something that’s inspirational and motivating about scrappy female entrepreneurs who fought tooth and nail to get where they are today.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
TheFrozenGarden.com
Facebook.com/TheFrozenGarden
Instagram.com/TheFrozenGarden
This was very meaningful, thank you so much, and we wish you only continued success.
Reducing Food Waste: Allyson Straka of Frozen Garden On How They Are Helping To Eliminate Food… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.