TrendiTech Inc., a Burnaby-based startup that’s creating robotic food waste solutions, announced that it’s raised $6.2 million in seed funding for its agri-food technology. This investment brings their cumulative seed round total to $8.45 million, with initial seed funding announced in July 2021. Both seed rounds were led by WGG Capital Canada and Florida’s Vestech Partners.

Founded in 2019, TrendiTech uses its proprietary BioTrim mobile processing units to rescue misfit fruits and vegetables before they’re thrown out and turns them into shelf-stable products. Each Biotrim unit uses a variety of end-to-end processing technologies, including UV and ozone cleaning, dicing, pureeing, and drying techniques to create nutrient-rich material, either in fragment form or powder form, which TrendiTech calls BioFlakes. BioFlakes can be used for animal feed, soil enhancements, and textiles.

“Trendi continues to impress and excite me with their forethought for the future, in solving a huge global problem, food waste,” says Herbert Madan of WGG Capital Canada. "My conviction is that the problem has only gotten worse. At the same time, parts of the world are going through dire food supply issues. Not only does Trendi's BioTrim solve the problem of food waste, but they are also helping to build solutions and sustainability in food security."

TrendiTech currently has three BioTrim models in development and servicing a range of industries—including farms and manufacturers to distributors—with the first look anticipated for this summer. 

“Every year, billions of tonnes of edible food are needlessly thrown away - enough food to feed every hungry person on the planet several times over,” explains Carissa Campeotto, co-founder and CMO of Trendi. “According to the WWF, on farms, this accounts for 1.2 billion tonnes globally per year, and about 931 million tonnes from households, food service, and retail sectors. Our goal is to spearhead change with our BioTrim technology and galvanize the community to join the fight.”