How to give food waste a second life

In this episode of the Better Heroes podcast series, host Matt C. Smith talks to Travin Singh, Founder and CEO of CRUST Group about reducing food waste.

Key takeaways:

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EY professionals work with impact entrepreneurs in-person or virtually, offering support to help improve their businesses’ resilience, productivity and capacity to scale sustainably.
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Travin Singh

Not a lot of people know how to scale an upcycled business.

Matt C. Smith

Do you see that changing anytime soon?

Singh

So, in the beverage industry or alternative for beverage, there is only really an alternative for milk. There isn't a lot being done in the alcohol industry and the soda space, and it's an industry that has not changed the way they produce or manufacture their beverage in the last 40, 50 years. I don't see it changing anytime soon, but I see us making a lot of inroads that could help that change, hopefully in the future. And I believe that the future of food should be more collaborative and less competitive.

Smith

Truth is, humanity can save itself and our planet. And right at this very moment, there’s someone who’s taken on this challenge and is on a path to solving an incredibly tough, global problem. This podcast was created to tell you about them.
You’re listening to Better Heroes, a show from the global EY organization about the untold stories of entrepreneurs devoting their lives to impactful innovation. I’m your host, Matt Smith.
Can you remember sitting at the dinner table and being told to finish your food? Maybe your parents or your teacher reminded you that there are hungry people all around the world who would love to have a meal in front of you. But we probably threw our leftovers away anyway. We still do. But we’re not the only problem. Food production creates tons of food waste as well. And with innovation in the food tech industry, people are finding innovative ways to put that wasted food to good use.
Today on Better Heroes, we speak to Travin Singh, Founder and CEO of CRUST Group. CRUST Group is a food-tech startup that uses surplus bread and other food waste to make beer and other food and beverages. Travin did not have to look far for his inspiration.

Singh

I come from a household where we did not have a lot. And my mom, if she cooks for the family today, if we don't finish today's meal, she’s going to incorporate this meal into something new tomorrow. You know, and she did all of this, not because she was a sustainability advocate or anything. To be very frank, I don't even think she knows the meaning of sustainability. So, she did it to maximize our resources at home. And that, basically, got me started on this journey.

Smith

Talk us through sort of your background experience. Did you just set out from that day forward? “My mother showed me a way how to be resourceful. I'm going to turn it into a business one day,” Or sort of where did that instigation for your journey start?

Singh

I would say that it started back in primary school, where, because, as I mentioned, I didn't have a lot, so I had to make money elsewhere. What actually happened was, we used to play this eraser game, so at recess time, we would go to the hall and, you know, basically get a few people to come down and play the game with me, and then try to win as much pocket money as possible.

Smith

What's the eraser game? How does that work?

Singh

It's just simple erasers with those erasers where you have the different countries on them, right? And you just go to stack one on top of the other.

Smith

As in like, literally to, like, rub out a pencil. Yeah, I got you.

Singh

Yeah. So, it’s just to go down, play a quick game, and win extra money. My parents actually didn't really know about this. And then secondary came, and Beyblade was big. It's quite famous, so you can go and Google it, B E Y B L A D E and you'll know what exactly it is. It started off as an anime, and then people started buying them. Then you have different versions of it with different characters.
Smith
If you search for Beyblade, you probably will recognize the spinning disks. They were popular in the early 2000s. But Travin wasn’t interested in them as a toy. He saw them as a way to make money!

Singh

Most people were spending a lot of money to buy the Greek character ones. Whereas for me, I just put a Beyblade together from metal because, again, the idea was to just win and make money off of it because I did not have a lot. That was where I started my entrepreneurship journey.

Smith

Travin had an entrepreneurial spirit from a young age. And his purpose was right in front of his face, but it took him a little while to find it.

Singh

The food website, I will say it's more of a steppingstone into the whole process. So, I grew up, as I mentioned, with my mom, doing everything that she did. And so, you know, even when I'm in school, I try not to waste as much as possible. And then, I basically went to the Navy. So, in the Navy, I saw a lot of food waste. And I think at that moment, I knew that I wanted to do something along those lines, but still had no idea exactly what it would be. Then, after the Navy, I was a financial advisor, and I guess that was when I started really diving into different research. Right? I love how something so simple as food can be super simple but, at the same time, also really complex. And I did a lot more research on food waste around the world, and that's where all the different stats started to pop up. Right. And, you kind of then want to do more. And through that period, about two or three years or two and a half years, actually, I also was homebrewing just for fun. I love having a couple of beers. I love making beers, and then it just started out as a hobby, and before you know it, it is now what I do for a living.

Smith

You kind of come full circle. You had this experience with your mother, of course, being super resourceful, with leftovers, always turning that into the next meal, right? So, unknowingly to her, she was being such a good advocate and example of food waste reduction in the everyday. But I'm curious about the Navy, you know, those kinds of services. That’s something we don't think too much about. Why was that so wasteful?

Singh

So, in Singapore, it's a really small country. It's a tiny little bit. We have never visually seen someone going to a farm and putting in all the resources, money, manpower and hard work into either creating or growing something. So, it becomes second nature to us to throw something away because we have not visually had that in mind. So, in the Navy, because it's not your money, right, you get free meals every single day. You don't feel the pinch. You're not spending. It’s essentially the government’s money, taxpayers’ money, right? And that, of course, contributed to a huge amount of waste.

Smith

That's a really good point, Travin, about how, you know, when there's sort of this lack of connection to “what are the resources we're using?” Right? Then there's a lack of responsibility. I think that's a bit of a systemic problem we might have actually and a mindset that needs to shift. So, you're there in the Navy. You're seeing this firsthand. And obviously, now we're noticing why you felt the need to see this issue because you had this learned behavior from family. So, what happened after that?

Singh

I traveled to the States for about a month and a half, and I was basically just doing a free internship anywhere between one to three days in 11 different breweries. And the idea was to just learn how, I guess, the brewing industry does things differently. And then, you know, one and a half months later, I came back to Singapore and just dived right into it. I didn't even think twice, didn't even do any more research. The idea was to just set up a company and then figure things out.

Smith

That was purely for brewing, right? So basically, you know, you had a passion and an interest in microbrewing, but was the initial idea for the brewing about using waste products, or when did that sort of come about? Because as I understand it, with CRUST, which we'll get into a little bit later, you're solving a major waste problem by using that as an actual raw material in the production of beer.

Singh

So, at the start, the idea was, I would say, really simple. It actually was to upcycle bread into beer. But then the idea was also just to stay in Singapore and settle into microbrewery, right — do a whole restaurant brewery concept where I make bread for the restaurant. And if there's any surplus, I convert it into beer, and then the spent grain from the beer will then be converted back into bread. That was the initial idea, definitely. But it was something that we did not really launch because of the COVID-19 pandemic and all. So, we had to shift. So, what we started doing, then, was to just make different types of beer from bread, then while making them, you know, we would basically just distribute them. Of course, you know, e-commerce store, just delivered to people's houses; kept it very simple as things moved on. We actually were a part of different accelerator programs and startup programs worldwide. The idea was to learn from these industries and these markets and understand if there was a need for what we did and then what happened afterward. We started delving into different types of surpluses, not just bread. Then we started making beers from rice, from pumpkin, from quinoa, from pineapple, and even coffee grounds.

Smith

Travin and CRUST had to figure out ways to pivot, just about like everyone else during and after COVID. But they also had other challenges. Listen to Travin as he explains their process of brewing beer in Singapore.

Singh

There are essentially four things that you've got to do when you need to go and make beer. You need water, you need grains, you need hops, and you need yeast. I can't really substitute my water right now, but I've done enough to substitute my grains with the surplus food, you know, hops. Right. Singapore, Southeast Asia in general. Such a tropical climate. We don't grow hops, but we bring everything in from, you know, different parts of Europe and from the US as well. And that in itself creates emission. Supply chain is something that we also really focused on, not just research and development innovation. So, what we then identified was that in Singapore, there were locally grown botanicals that we could use as a hop substitute, and we started using them with relative success, right? Because these botanicals could then mimic hop properties. So, one I built, of course, a more environmentally friendly process and supply chain. Right. But I also made my supply chain more resilient with regard to everything that was happening during the COVID-19 pandemic. And then, now, we’re also doing non-alcoholic beverages. We are calculating our own data and also, will soon be sharing it with our partners with a B2B model, where we don't just make our own brands. We basically work with big F&B groups, supermarkets and hotels. They all create their own waste. Right now, through our B2B model, that we call the VaaS model (valorization as a service), we actually upcycle their surplus and create their own house brand for them.

Smith

So, you can effectively come to you as a hotel or restaurant or anything that has a byproduct waste product which you can make beer out of and say, “Hey, Travin, CRUST Group, could you help us make a beverage of some kind?” And is it only beverages?

Singh

So, we have two brands, CRUST is the alcohol brand where we predominantly make beer. We also have CROP, which we just launched in Japan. So, Japan is our second market. CROP is our sparkling soda health focus sparkling soda that we actually upcycle food and vegetable surplus. So right now, with regards to what the market has to offer and what we have to offer to the market is a beverage, but it is a little bit more hush-hush information. But we have also been upcycling our own spent grain, and we actually look at every single aspect of what we do as a company, and we convert our spent grain into pancake mix. And right now, we are exploring a granola bar with silkworm just so that we actually bring the whole health-focused side into what we also do. But the food application site will be something that we might focus on in the future. But, with everything that we're doing right now, beverage is our main focus.

Smith

How does the process actually work? Tell me, where do you introduce the grain, the bread, whatever the product is? Maybe give us a few examples of how you work with that from start to finish and also the time frame — curious to know how long it actually takes to brew beer.

Singh

It takes about a month to brew a beer, three to four weeks with regards to the fermentation process, and then packaging after. So, I mentioned earlier about grains. You will need all the malt and everything for beer; you need the sugar content. So that's why we actually incorporate the bread and rice because we extract the sugar content from these byproducts, or rather, surplus. And the process goes right from the start where we actually extract the sugars, right? And convert those sugars into alcohol. And, you know, when we first started, of course, very small, had no know-how whatsoever, even from a supply chain standpoint, we essentially were collecting our supplies from various collection points. And then we realized through that process alone that we were actually emitting so much carbon. So, it did not make sense. And then, we shifted into a game. I think a lot of what we do for reflection, brand, will be to work with the really big players because they all have central kitchens. So, once we make the beer right, and if it's our collaboration, our VaaS model, then we basically sell the entire batch to that hotel or supermarket, etc. Then, you know, of course, you're branded in between, right? And then they can then sell and make profits from their consumers. And, you know, we give them, I guess, also an angle to use CRUST as an avenue to help them fight this fight with us with regards to food waste. And, of course, people want to do a lot more, but they don't have the time and all the bandwidth. So, if you come in and actually provide a real solution from start to finish or create a platform where they can thrive and also earn profits from it, right? Then why not?

Smith

It's fascinating. You mentioned initially starting, you know, pre-COVID-19 as a B2C business. I guess, you know, your own brand, right? CRUST, the physical location, and you got stopped by the COVID-19 pandemic, I guess. Could you say that was a blessing because, I mean, do you think that if you had maintained that path, you would have stayed purely as CRUST, the local bread-to-brewery maker?

Singh

I don't think so. And I’ll explain why. So, there's a saying that I essentially live my life by, and the saying goes, “The smaller your reality, the more convinced you are that you know everything.” So essentially, the only way to really know more is to open up your reality. So, it's a mindset that I have, and it's something that I use on a regular basis. So, essentially, whichever environment I'm put in, I will try to maximize it. But from a business standpoint, I pivot into whatever I am today. But if there was no COVID-19 pandemic, I would probably still have pivoted, but in a very different fashion, probably.

Smith

What was the quote, again? I want to write that down; that’s beautiful. The smaller your reality …

Singh

The more convinced you are that you know everything.

Smith

The more convinced you are that you know everything. So, you went from B2C to the B2B angle? How did you take the footsteps toward going to other businesses and brands and saying, “Hey, why don't we work with you and large F&B producers, which has obviously now become the backbone of the business?” How did that steppingstone come? Where did that eureka moment come from?

Singh

Probably during one of my startup programs, where we got that whole model, and we started finalizing and, just, I guess, prioritizing it to a certain extent also. But then the pitch to these F&B companies was really difficult because they were not going through an easy time during the COVID-19 pandemic. And imagine if you come in and just say, I have a really good idea, right? But it will mean that you have to invest as well. We knew that we would not have gotten any yes during the COVID-19 pandemic, but we knew that we still had to go out there and pitch about it, right? Get people a bit more excited, get some feedback as well with a suggestion to do it in a different way, which is exactly what we did for about a year-ish. Right. And then six months ago, or I would say six to nine months ago, was when it really hit off for us when we started closing these really large contracts in Singapore. You know, and these guys are now staying with us also and signing longer-term contracts also in both Singapore and Japan.

Smith

But I'm curious, the food tech space, obviously, you were talking in sort of the Southeast Asian markets and wider Asian markets and maybe had plans to scale elsewhere as well. But is there an interest in those markets to solve problems in the food waste space? Or are you a diamond in the rough?

Singh

I would say my experience has been both good and bad. With regards to space, with regards to everything that's happened in the last four years, COVID and all. In certain markets, food tech is really big. In certain markets, not so much.

Smith

Where is it big? Is it in the US? Where is this sort of a big thing?

Singh

It’s definitely in the US and different parts of Europe, the UK even, actually, even in Singapore. Food tech in Asia, food tech is really big, but there are different variations of food tech. Alternative protein is really big because more people understand a lot more about it. There're so many alternatives right now because of chicken, beef, fish, seafood, etc. But, in Asia specifically, upcycling is not big. Not a lot of people know how to scale an upcycling business. Not a lot of VCs know how to help an upcycling company. So that's where we found that we had a lot of challenges. I would say upcycling is so much bigger in the US and in different parts of Europe, but not so much in Asia at this moment.

Smith

Do you see that changing anytime soon?

Singh

So, in the beverage industry or alternative for beverage, there is only really an alternative to milk. There isn't a lot being done in the alcohol and in soda space, and it's an industry that has not changed the way they produce or manufacture their beverage in the last 40, 50 years. I don't see it changing anytime soon, but I see us making a lot of inroads that could help that change, hopefully in the future. And I believe that the future of food should be more collaborative and less competitive.

Smith

Travin’s way of fighting food waste is truly unique. I want us to all think about the term upcycling for a second. Travin’s company isn’t just creating a new product. They’re taking existing products that would otherwise be wasted and making something new and desirable out of them. We can all apply that example on a small scale in our own lives. Think of Travin’s mom turning leftover meals into whole new meals.

Singh

So, I don't really focus too much on our competitors. In fact, if someone else comes into the industry right now in Asia and says, “Okay, I want to upcycle and make that rich,” I would be more than happy to actually help, and I'll be more than happy to actually have someone fighting that fight with me because the more companies there are, right, the more we can save.

Smith

Travin, I love that statement. I'm going to share a statement with you as well. I don't know where I heard this. Maybe I made it up myself. But I always like to encourage entrepreneurs to see competition, not as competition or competitors, as you've just said, but to see them as complementors. And especially in your case, with the impact you're creating. The more players that come into the game, the better solutions, the better waste reduction, and therefore the better impact we'll have, right?

Singh

Yeah, definitely. And you will have better technologies, right? We all have the same north star, just different ways of doing things, right? Another perspective is when you focus too much on competition, right, you focus too much on competing, which means you will do anything it takes at the expense of someone else going out of business. And more often than not, that process or the entire journey of you trying to compete will be detrimental to environmental and social causes. And that's why we have reached where we are with regards to, you know, global warming, etc., right? Because everybody's trying to compete.

Smith

Well, there's one last area that you can compete on when you've competed on innovation and everything else, and that's cost. And therefore, if you reduce cost, therefore, increase your unit economics and grow your margin, then that's when costs get cut toward innovation and other solutions. So, what's next for CRUST? You've obviously done a fantastic job in creating this product, which is now benefiting not just your core products but also other businesses and helping them become more sustainable. Great example you just gave now, but what's next? You touched on new products, pancake mixes coming and nonalcoholic products. Where do you want to take CRUST? What's your vision for it?

Singh

So, we have this thing that we call the CRUST Universe, and it revolves around three different industries. So, the beverage is first, which is what we're doing right now, with both alcohol and non-alcohol. The second sector will be food application, which is where hopefully, the pancake mix will come in in the future. And then the third one will be packaging. And as I go up the value chain, I will need to be connected and collaborate with more F&B Partners.

Smith

How can we help you today? All of us listening to this, where can we get involved? How can we start to homebrew using bread we haven't eaten at breakfast? How can consumers actually have an impact on your space? Because, evidently, you tried the consumer route and then realized the B2B angle was probably the best option to go for and maybe has the greatest impact. But how can consumers have an impact?

Singh

So, we’re actually still doing B2C. We do have our flagship brand, still. And on top of that, we are also even considering sort of a subscription model data implemented within for our consumer-focused channels. So, personally, and even within the company, a lot of the innovations that we have had so far are because, personally, when I have my own surplus, or I see that we are emitting carbon in a certain way, I have a five-minute policy whereby my five minutes is very simple. Let's say if I have spent grain, right, now I'm just going to go Google 5 minutes: how to save spent grain, how to upcycle spent grain, how to maximize spent grain. Right. And before you know it, your five minutes are going to turn into a half an hour. It'll probably be a week, one month later, and you might have a whole new market research on a whole new different product or ways to be able to do that. So, I would just probably urge everybody to just adopt that 5-minute policy, right in whichever way you want to. And then you can start helping in whichever way you can.

Smith

Just as we finish off, what's your entrepreneurial advice? Would you recommend entrepreneurship, and if you would, would you say food tech is the space to do it?

Singh

I think any industry is the space to do it if you have a passion for it. So don't just focus on the industry. Focus on what you actually, really want to solve. And if entrepreneurship is a journey for everybody, I would say not really. It is definitely a lot of stress, a lot of day-to-day grind. And you need that passion. You need that passion for what you do because it's what's going to keep you awake late at night, early in the morning, without having to hesitate or make your way to work. But it's definitely super fruitful when you see people adopt your mentality, right, or adopt your products, your solution, right. I think that drives you to do even more. And when you see your solution actually really helping environmental and social causes, it also motivates you to do a lot more.

Smith

What drives you, Travin?

Singh

I would say a little bit of everything. I just want to have a really good impact on the world. It's as simple as that. It doesn't have to be more complicated, right? As long as I'm around, I want to be able to continuously try to solve different problems. But problems that I'm personally passionate about also.

Smith

Travin, that's why you're a better hero. Thank you so much for joining me and my friends, and now your friends, hopefully too, on this podcast, Better Heroes. Thank you.

Singh

Yeah. Thanks for having me. This was quite fun.

Smith

Thank you for joining me, Matt C. Smith, on this episode of Better Heroes. You can learn more at CRUST-group.com that’s C-R-U-S-T group.com. And you can learn more about EY Ripples and all of our impact entrepreneurs at www.ey.com/eyripples. The links are in our show notes.
Please don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast, Better Heroes, wherever you listen to your podcasts. You can also rate and leave our show a review to help others find out about the amazing work our impact entrepreneurs are doing. Before we go, we’d really like to thank our podcast producers Hueman Group Media, who helped us bring this show to life.
That’s it for today’s episode. We’ll be back next week.

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Better Heroes is a project of EY Ripples, a global program to mobilize people across the EY network to help solve the world's most urgent social and environmental challenges. By extending EY skills, knowledge and experience to impact entrepreneurs on a not-for-profit basis and forging collaborations with like-minded organizations, EY Ripples is helping scale new technologies and business models that are purposefully driving progress toward the UN’s 17 sustainable development goals.
The views of third parties set out in this podcast are not necessarily the views of the global EY organization or its member firms. Moreover, they should be seen in the context of the time that they were made.

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Matt C Smith
Professional MC, Broadcaster & Host, The Lunicorn

Travin Singh
Founder and CEO of CRUST Group

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Episode 4

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How to give food waste a second life

Key takeaways:

Matt C Smith Professional MC, Broadcaster & Host, The Lunicorn

Travin Singh Founder and CEO of CRUST Group

In this series

Presenters

Matt C Smith
Professional MC, Broadcaster & Host, The Lunicorn

Travin Singh
Founder and CEO of CRUST Group