Two unconventional farmers find an unconventional match through the Austin Materials Marketplace
Aspire Food Group and Eden’s Cove Farm projected to see over $13,000 in savings and value creation
The Austin Materials Marketplace network is made up of over 200 eco-conscious organizations, businesses and entrepreneurs; including Austin’s only commercial scale, food-grade cricket farm: Aspire Food Group. Sustainability has deep roots at Aspire; not only in their drive to reimagine global food systems, but also in how they operate on a day-to-day basis. To this end, Aspire joined the Austin Materials Marketplace to discover higher and better uses for their primary by-products: coconut coir, peat moss, and organic cricket feed.
At Aspire, the crickets have an average lifespan of a little over one month. At the end of this month, there is leftover feed and nesting habitat materials - peat moss and coconut coir. Like many materials we see in the Materials Marketplace program, we quickly recognized the economic and environmental potential in finding a higher and better use for these nutrient-dense materials.
Eden’s Cove Farm, a heritage hog farm focused on building community and sustainability, is one of the participants capturing value from this by-product stream. On an ongoing basis, Eden’s Cove is picking up thousands of pounds of material per month from Aspire Food Group to use as feed for their heritage hogs. So far, the transaction has diverted 7,470lbs from landfill and avoided 5 metric tons of CO2 emissions. Both parties will also save big in 2017 with this ongoing transaction: approximately $12,000 per year in replacement feed costs, and a little over $1,000 per year in landfill disposal and new by-product revenue.
To sweeten the pot a bit more, Eden’s Cove is also using buckets from Austin Bergstrom International Airport - found through the Austin Materials Marketplace - to transport and store the feed. Austin Bergstrom International Airport generates an ongoing supply of these buckets; they typically recycle them, but prefer to find opportunities for the buckets to be reused due to the environmental benefits of reuse over recycling. With three different organizations finding reuse opportunities through this one transaction, this is truly a win-win-win scenario.
Take advantage of our program and create value for your business today by logging into your Marketplace account, browsing what’s available and starting a transaction. Not an Austin Materials Marketplace participant? Joining is easy - get in touch today to learn more.