How Wastelink Is Solving Food Wastage Crisis By Turning Surplus Into Animal Feed

Whatever we gather for cooking isn’t consumed entirely. In fact, a large part of the food meant for human consumption remains unused every day. That’s where food can be converted to feed. It’s green, it’s clean, and it guarantees zero landfill, claims Wastelink.

“The science behind our business lies in the food that was destined for humans but could not reach humans for supply chain issues. It can be best utilised to feed animals,” said Saket Dave, whose Wastelink is trying to address two issues with one solution.

After collecting surplus food from producers, Wastelink turns it into its proprietary nutrition-based feed ingredient called ECOMIX. This final product is then used by animal feed companies in manufacturing animal food products.

What lay behind the making of Wastelink?

Some simple stats and concern for the environment, to say the least, besides a passion, backed by academic successes.

About 19% of food is wasted across retail stores, food services, and households, while supply chain snag makes up 13% more. In fact, food loss and waste account for 8-10% of the annual global greenhouse gas emissions.

Back home, Indian households waste nearly 78.2 Mn Tonnes of food every year, which is enough to feed 377 Mn people and equals to 26.5% of the per capita staple food needs.

While the post-consumption food waste majorly ends up in landfills and composting, the pre-consumption food, which can also be called surplus food, is the actual treasure.

The Wastelink business model helped it garner $3 Mn in a Series A funding round from Avaana Capital to enhance its tech stack and expand into newer categories.

A Recycling Fervour Since Young Age

As a chemical engineering student, Dave had developed an interest in recycling and began converting food waste into fertilisers. In 2011, he was honoured as the international climate champion for India and was part of a delegation representing India at COP 17 in South Africa.

Saket Dave met angel investor Krishnan Kasturirangan at Knowlarity, a B2B cloud-based communication venture which was later picked up by Gupshup. The civil engineer from IIT Madras later did his PhD in transportation engineering. The duo set up Wastelink in 2018 based on the concept of reverse logistics, where Kasturirangan’s expertise in transportation engineering was crucial.

For the first two years, Kasturirangan was the sole angel investor in the company. He officially joined Wastelink as a cofounder in 2020. Wastelink was run as a marketplace that connected sellers and buyers of surplus food production for the first six months.

“We realised that just being a marketplace wasn’t enough. While suppliers have a lot to give, there are not enough processing technologies that can handle those volumes and also give them a commercial realisation that is much superior to composting,” Dave said.

For most of its existence, Wastelink transformed surplus food into a powder-like substance and sold it to animal food manufacturers who, in turn, used it in making their feed. Wastelink’s ECOMIX came out in 2022. It has a fixed percentage of nutrients, allowing animal feed manufacturers to add it directly to their products.

“Earlier, we could not guarantee if the food manufacturer will get 10% fat, or 7% protein. But ECOMIX’s proprietary formulation has all of these products in some proportion or the other,” explained Kasturirangan.

A Mechanism To Solve Dual Problems

Soon after starting its journey, Wastelink encountered two problems. The first was logistics, which involved sourcing the surplus food and transporting it to the processing facilities where cattle feed raw material is made. The second was lack of control over nutrients.

Pre-consumption food waste is majorly divided into four categories – packaged food in retail, agricultural food waste, food waste in restaurants during cooking, and food waste during meat cultivation.

Wastelink deals with the first two categories and collects the surplus food waste from these food producers. The collection is then sent to its four processing facilities in Sonipat, Lucknow, Mumbai and Bengaluru.

“We are servicing over 5,000 pin codes nearly every month. We are sourcing the stuff even from the remotest corners of Kashmir to Northeast and bringing it to our factories. This shows our supply strength,” Kasturirangan said.

After going through a four-step process, this surplus food is turned into ECOMIX, where the nutrient issue is fixed. “For a food manufacturer, we are solving a service problem. For an animal feed manufacturer, we are solving the ingredient problem,” he added.

The surplus food is first segregated and packages are removed in the factory. The segregation of food waste is based on Wastelink’s proprietary requirements. The wet food waste is dehydrated and then ground. Wastelink has developed a formulation that helps in blending a wide variety of input food surplus in all shapes and forms.

“Heterogeneous waste or byproducts can be taken to create a singular output that is designed to help the animal improve its productivity,” Dave added.

The startup claims that their proprietary formulation has been refined over the years through live trials conducted in collaboration with multiple veterinary universities as well as the National Dairy Development Board.

This formula has been tested around all sorts of animal health behaviours, including reproductive health, milk output level, fat changes, body composition changes, and heavy metal contamination.

Without giving specifics, Dave highlighted that Wastelink also uses certain additives to manage nutritional commitment as well as the product texture. The startup claims that ECOMIX enhances the milk output, helps in faster weight gain, and decreases input costs for manufacturers.

Wastelink has filed for patents for both its process as well as formulation.

How ECOMIX Drives Economics

Wastelink enters into long-term partnerships with food manufacturers, based on the assessment of their food generation capacities. These terms of the contracts vary based on the logistics costs that Wastelink bears to transport food waste from the sourcing point to its processing facilities.

“We consider the operating cost of upcycling the food surplus waste and then come up with a value. For instance, if the cost of bringing the food waste to our plant is cheaper, then we pay the food manufacturer. Otherwise, we charge them,” Kasturirangan said.

ECOMIX runs central to the business model devised by the agritech startup.

It helps feed manufacturers save on their cost of production. While Wastelink did not disclose the exact cost of the product, it claimed that ECOMIX is priced 2-5% cheaper than equivalent nutritional value of maize.

The feed that is made for cattle or poultry has a specific nutrient value design based on the life stage of the animal. For example, the feed nutrient value needed for a milking cow is different from that of a calf. Now, feed manufacturers rely on traditional commodities to match these nutrient needs.

“Our product is a bucket of nutrition. The feed manufactures take our ingredients and adjust some of their existing ingredients in such a proportion that the overall animal diet does not change,” Dave said.

To facilitate traceability, the startup has developed an AI-based reverse supply chain tracking system that lets food manufacturers trace the usage of their surplus waste and plastics, and the animal feed manufacturer to check what is being added to the Wastelink ingredient.

Wastelink’s rivals like Sea6 Energy and Krimanshi also provide a nutrition-balanced ingredient. While Sea6 Energy only produces ingredients for shrimps, Krimanshi has its supplies restricted to Rajasthan, Gujarat, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh. Wastelink, in comparison, serves cattle and poultry with a pan-India reach.

The Blueprint For Future

Wastelink has been revenue-positive since the sixth month of its inception. The forms of revenue generating assets, however, kept on evolving. The startup’s revenue from operations reached INR 26.5 Cr in FY25 and is expected to cross INR 60 Cr this fiscal.

Wastelink claims to be a zero-waste facility. Kasturirangan further explained that in a typical food consumer company, about 90% of the total volume is usually composed of food material. The remaining 10% is packaging material, plastic, paper, cardboard, glass, and so on.

The startup works with authorised recyclers for this 10% of the waste.

“So, 100% of what we collect from our suppliers gets recycled in some shape or form,” he said.

Going ahead, the startup aims to expand its product category to cater to more segments of animals and expand its geographical footprint by exporting their services and products.

[Edited By Kumar Chatterjee]

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