upcycled food association

Caroline Cotto is the Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer of Renewal Mill, a venture-backed startup creating a new circular economy of food by upcycling the byproducts of food manufacturing into ingredients. 

A food marketing and nutrition specialist, Caroline has experience at the UN World Food Programme in Cambodia, the White House (for Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative), Techstars Farm to Fork Accelerator, and HubSpot, where she ran the women’s diversity program globally. 

Caroline grew up in food, working for her family’s ice cream business in the town of Sandwich, MA. 

Caroline serves as the Board President of the Upcycled Food Association, and formerly served as a Fulbright Fellow in Taiwan.

In This Conversation We Discuss: 

1. [00:00] Intro
2. [01:00] What is Renewal Mill?
3. [01:41] Validating the idea for Renewal Mill
4. [03:06] Renewal Mill’s first product
5. [04:32] Workarounds of introducing a new product
6. [05:04] Renewal Mill’s ideation process and timeline
7. [05:43] How Renewal Mill entered the Ecommerce space
8. [06:15] Driving awareness for upcycled food
9. [06:58] Renewal Mill’s B2B go-to market strategy
10. [07:50] Considering B2C to generate short-term revenue
11. [12:59] Challenges of being a new B2C business
12. [13:40] Two ways Renewal Mill overcame the challenges
13. [14:17] Driving traffic to their website through partnerships
14. [14:59] Partnerships are both a win and a challenge
15. [15:38] Finding ways to stand out from other brands
16. [16:00] Brand advocacies vs what consumers actually care about
17. [16:28] Tailor brand messages to appeal to customers
18. [16:57] Leveraging upcycling as their Unique Selling Point
19. [17:31] The power of interviewing your customers
20. [18:12] Know where customers live online and offline
21. [18:45] Staying in traditional retail for impulse buyers
22. [19:21] Limited offers to reel in loyal customers
23. [20:00] Where to support Renewal Mill

Resources:

• Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube
• Upcycled, crave-worthy, & climate-friendly food renewalmill.com
• Follow Caroline linkedin.com/in/carolinecotto/
• Schedule an intro call with one of our experts electriceye.io/connect
• Take your retail business to the next level today shopify.com/honest
• Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period
• Schedule your free consultation with a Sendlane expert sendlane.com/honest

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Will an upcycled certification mark on food packaging resonate with consumers? In this episode of the Xtalks Food Podcast, Sydney discusses the new, first-of-its-kind upcycled food label from the Upcycled Food Association (UFA). She shares some insights from an interview with the UFA’s marketing director, Leah Graham, and asks the team whether they would consider spending more money on a product with upcycled ingredients. 

Also in this episode, Mira introduces the team to the Omnipan, a new line of cookware made from silicon designed with millennials in mind. While the team is skeptical of the Omnipan’s name and effectiveness in the kitchen, Mira says the company has carved out a niche for millennials in smaller living spaces looking to cook and store food with less hassle.

Read the full articles here: 

Will An Upcycled Certification Mark on Packaged Foods Resonate With Consumers?

Is Omnipan the Only Cookware Millennials Need?

For more food and beverage industry content, visit the Xtalks Vitals homepage.

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Host Jenna Liut interviews Turner Wyatt, Co-founder & CEO of the Upcycled Food Association, a nonprofit working to reduce food waste by growing the upcycled food economy. They discuss consumer demand upcycled products, UFA’s progress in creating an Upcycled Food Certification Standard, and of course, Brené Brown.

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