CERO Cooperative, Inc. - Blog by Jonathan Butler

THANK YOU FOR YOUR VOTE!

Fri, 16 Apr 2021 08:35:20 -0500

CERO COOP WINS GREEN AMERICA'S PEOPLE AND PLANET BUSINESS AWARD

Due to the support of our followers, investors, and partners, CERO Cooperative has won the Green America's People and Planet Award. We thank you!

GREEN AMERICA PEOPLE PLANET BUSINESS AWARD

Fri, 16 Apr 2021 08:33:59 -0500

CERO is a finalist for Green America's People & Planet Award. Click here to cast your vote for our cooperative!

CERO Cooperative turns trash into treasure in Boston. Every week we collect tons of food scraps from local

grocery stores and restaurants and, instead of that stuff turning to toxic methane gas in landfills, we make sure it’s turned into rich compost. Then we deliver it back to the community where it is re-earthed to grow more food in gardens and farms. Last season’s food “waste” comes back to our tables as this year’s local crops.

Last summer we had a big party right in the bustling urban center of Boston’s Dudley Square. Folks walked and bike-toured less than a mile to see how CERO Co-op collects material and gets the composted soil over to the Haley House Thornton Street Farm. Then everybody helped harvest eggplant, peppers, and basil and brought the veggies back to Dudley Dough, where we had a giant pizza party with toppings courtesy of the farm. Of course there wasn’t any waste because all of the leftover scraps went right into CERO’s compost bins. This full food loop is the greenest part of growing a robust economy in the heart of the city.

Imagine a cooperative urban economy where we don’t export waste and we don’t import food. Not only are we doing the right thing for the environment and the planet, we’re showing that it’s possible to create a new circular economy based on closing the food loop. We’re creating good jobs and a cooperative composting community with a business owned by the workers, right where we live.

The whole community got into this movement to grow local food and jobs by putting their money with their values to invest in the CERO start up. Friends and neighbors helped worker-owners raise the cash to finance their cooperative social venture and now they share in the pride as they see us retrieving compostables and delivering soil in the neighborhood. Together we’re learning that we really can make a profit when we put people and the planet first.
In our urban neighborhoods most folks can’t set up to compost in their own backyards. When you vote for CERO to win the Green People and Planet Business Award we will use the prize money to set up community compost drop off sites at local farmers’ markets. When we make it easy for families to compost their household food scraps we take another step toward helping all Boston residents make the culture shift to be a super-green zero waste city.

B.GOOD, BE GREAT: 4 WINNING SECRETS FROM BOSTON'S HEALTHY FAST-FOOD PIONEER

Fri, 16 Apr 2021 08:27:20 -0500

CERO partner since

2016

Composted

52561

lbs food waste

Mitigated

tons CO2e

Which is equal to taking

cars off the road for a year

Making it in the restaurant industry is no easy task. According to a study by Ohio University, 80% of new restaurants fail in the first five years. So, what does it take to be in that top 20%? Many food blogs and restaurant gurus will tell you that it's a numbers game: efficiency, planning, and good accounting being paramount. They certainly wouldn't be wrong. However, Boston-based b.good is doing much more than that.

After twelve years of growth, opening their doors at 40 locations (including one in Switzerland) and garnering dozens of awards and accolades, here are some of the ways b.good is setting the new standard for successful, community-focused business.

1. Make the most of your mistakes.

Can you turn your mistakes into opportunities? How about into a farm, on an island? After making a mistake on a catering order for a large summer camp located on Long Island in Boston Harbor, b.good visited the camp to make amends in person. In talking with the camp staff, a vision was formed to use abandoned land on the island to grow food. Just a few months later, b.good is running Hannah Farm on the property and donating 75% of what they grow back to the summer camp and to communities in need. The rest goes back to b.good's restaurants and prep kitchens, where the scraps are picked up to be composted. The finished soil is then delivered back out to Hannah Farm, completing the food loop.

2. No customers, and no employees.
Instead, b.good affectionately refers to their staff and patrons as "family." And it's not just talk. The healthy fast-food pioneer treats its family like family should, with surprise gifts of free food through their mobile app, even allowing family to donate gifts to local charities or share with friends.

3. Celebrate partners.
Inside the door of every b.good location, you'll find a map illustrating the farmers and makers that supply the ingredients for your soon-to-be lunch. This not only promotes the folks doing hard work behind the scenes, but also promotes transparency and fosters trust and accountability in the "family".

4. Empower communities.
b.good created the b.good Family Foundation to enable inspired individuals to tackle the issues that matter to them. Using the proceeds from its events and fundraisers, the foundation provides micro-grants to real people with a vision to improve their community. Recently funded projects include building a skatepark for at-risk youth, and fashioning urban gardens that donate produce to those in need.

There's something special about a for-profit company that not only believes in giving back, but knows how to make it happen. b.good has made this a habit, and the results can be seen in their loyal "family," and in the lives they impact directly through food donations and community micro-grants. But let's not forget, b.good has a fantastic product, which simply can't be overlooked when we're talking about restaurant success. Bacon and housemade jalapeño slaw on an all-natural house-ground burger? Locally sourced butternut squash salad with sharp cheddar, apples, tamari almonds, pomegranates, and maple-mustard vinaigrette? I think it must be lunch time.

2 MILLION POUNDS: WHAT IS THE IMPACT OF YOUR FOOD WASTE?

Fri, 26 Mar 2021 14:55:35 -0500

Wahoo! Earlier this week, CERO composted it's two millionth pound of food waste. With nearly three months still to go in 2016, we've diverted more than 150% of what we did in all of 2015. The road to this point has been full of challenges, and we are both thrilled and proud to hit this milestone. We couldn't have done it without our incredible partners like America's Food Basket, Wegmans, Dudley Dough, Daily Table, Tropical Foods, DiSilva Fruit, b.good, The Frogmore, Fairsted Kitchen, Boston Public Market and countless others. Y'all are rockstars.

According to a 2015 UW-Madison study, landfilling one ton of food waste results in the emission of 0.71 tons CO2e. This is due mostly to methane emissions that are produced when food waste is buried and forced to break down under anaerobic conditions (no oxygen). On the other hand, composting a ton of food waste results in a net reduction of 0.24 tons CO2e, due to carbon sequestration. This means that for every pound of food waste composted, we are effectively putting carbon back into the ground. It sounds too good to be true, but nature has been doing it for millions of years!

When food breaks down under natural conditions, the nutrients are returned to the soil to be used by future plants. This creates a sustainable cycling of nutrients, which is what CERO strives to do. This is in direct opposition to landfilling, which leaves these nutrients stranded and sealed underground, never to be returned to the natural environment or cycled into new plants.

So, what is the climate change effect of your food waste? We've created this handy calculator to do the math for you. Just plug in the amount of food waste you think your business is producing (check out this reference if you're unsure) and it will tell you the resulting CO2e from landfilling, as well as the net CO2e reduction if that same food waste were composted instead. Finally, we've used the EPA standard to determine what your saved CO2e would look like in terms of cars taken off the road for a year. (Psst: if you're not a business and your numbers are too small, get this: an average U.S. family of four produces the same amount of CO2e every year through wasted food as an average SUV would produce driving 1,000 miles from Boston to Chicago).

Enjoy the calculator, and share with anyone who might find it useful!