RTS acquires Ambrosia

Recycle Track Systems Inc. (RTS), New York City, announced on Oct. 22 that it has acquired Newark, New Jersey-based Industrial Organic PBC (doing business as Ambrosia). Ambrosia is a closed-loop manufacturing company that turns food waste into circular products and commodities. According to RTS, this acquisition, which is the company’s third since launching in 2015, helps further its commitment to sustainable solutions for waste management.

As a waste and environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) consulting partner for corporations, RTS says it plans to strengthen its focus on advancing sustainability initiatives in materials management at scale. With organic waste being the top contributor to landfills at nearly 80 billion pounds disposed of in the U.S. annually, the deal with Ambrosia will allow the company to bring circular services to its client-base more broadly, it says.

“As one of Ambrosia’s early partners, we believed in their circularity mission from the start,” RTS CEO Greg Lettieri says. “We are proud to have coordinated more than 120 tons of food waste to be put back into the economy through our partnership, and now, have an opportunity to change the entire landscape of food waste processing with Ambrosia’s innovative foundation.”

Ambrosia was founded in 2014 to tackle the country’s growing food waste problem. According to RTS, the company is “most known for developing a revolutionary process to stabilize and isolate the compounds of organic material, including the water, to create a non-toxic and sustainable cleaning product. The product, Veles, was introduced into the consumer market earlier this year with notable success.”

“A recent analysis of solutions to limit global warming identified food waste reduction as the most impactful due to the CO2 emissions produced when it decomposes in a landfill,” Amanda Weeks, former Ambrosia CEO and cofounder who now works for RTS, says. “There are many important opportunities to rethink manufacturing of everyday goods by using byproducts of our existing resources. We plan to convert municipal and commercial food waste into value-add products with established markets, utilizing 100 percent of this complex, yet promising, feedstock. By having the technology, waste management and environmentally centered capabilities of RTS, we are thrilled to be able to innovate together on solving these major waste issues.”

In addition to Veles, the acquisition includes Ambrosia’s assets—a 12,000-square-foot production facility based in Newark and several patent applications that will fold into RTS’s product and development portfolio.

As the company aims to make circular processing more accessible, RTS is also emphasizing waste diversion solutions with the recent launch of zerowaste.com. The site offers both individuals and businesses content, tips, zero waste products and educational guides to educate on zero waste best practices.

“Bringing the reality of our global waste challenges front and center is always top-of-mind for us,” Lettieri says. “With the platform zerowaste.com, we can make connections with a wider audience and share the expertise we have [regarding] reuse and reduction with homes, communities and businesses. Going ‘zero waste’ does not happen overnight, but having an accessible resource that provides transparency is going to be essential in addressing our single-use dependency and in helping to change the mindset about our country’s waste production.”