Divert celebrates 1B pounds of food waste processed since 2021

Divert Inc., based in Concord, Massachusetts, announced it has processed more than 1 billion pounds of wasted food since 2021, mitigating approximately 80,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).

According to the company, this is the equivalent of eliminating nearly 18,000 gasoline-powered passenger vehicles on the road a year or providing more than 15,000 homes with electricity for a year.

The milestone represents Divert’s continued progress ​​in tackling the national wasted food crisis, with wasted food contributing up to 10 percent of GHG emissions globally. Divert says it is positioned to significantly accelerate meaningful impact on this crisis through the company’s “advanced technologies, logistics and sustainable infrastructure.”

As one of the largest processors of wasted food in the U.S., the company currently manages approximately 0.5 percent of all wasted food nationwide. In the next eight years, Divert plans to expand to 30 facilities within 100 miles of 80 percent of the total U.S. population and be able to process 5 percent of all wasted food in the U.S. With this expansion, the company says it is poised to process six billion pounds of wasted food annually by 2031.

“In Divert’s 16-year history, our priority has always been to prevent wasted food and drive positive environmental impact that preserves our world for future generations,” says Ryan Begin, CEO and co-founder of Divert. “We want to celebrate reaching this milestone of one billion pounds in such a short amount of time while recognizing that we still have important work ahead of us as an industry to accelerate that impact. Through our continued collaboration with our customers and our plans for rapid yet responsible infrastructure development over the next decade, Divert is truly poised to make a significant contribution to tackling this crisis.”

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“Divert has been integral in helping to divert food waste going to landfills across our retail locations and enabling us to make meaningful progress on our ‘Recipe for Change’ goals,” says Suzanne Long, chief sustainability and transformation officer at national grocer Albertsons Cos. “This industry-leading milestone is a testament to the impactful solutions Divert has pioneered to address the issue of food waste, and the responsibility and opportunity we have as an industry to prioritize sustainability and mitigate our climate impact.”

This milestone comes on the heels of rapid growth for Divert. To meet growing demand, Divert expanded its employee headcount by more than 33 percent in the past year. The company also recently broke ground on its Integrated Diversion & Energy Facility in Turlock, California, and secured a $1 billion infrastructure agreement with Enbridge Inc. alongside $100 million in growth equity led by Ara Partners to develop additional anaerobic digestion facilities across the U.S.

Divert, which was founded in 2007, provides an end-to-end solution to help prevent waste by maximizing the freshness of food, recovering edible food to serve communities in need and converting wasted food into renewable energy. The company works with five Fortune 100 companies and nearly 5,400 retail stores across the U.S., helping food retailers to reach their sustainability goals.