Anna Hammond is the Founder and CEO of Matriark Foods whose mission is to divert surplus food headed to the landfill and create healthy products for food service, retail and emergency food supplies. What many home cooks have done at home for centuries, Matriark is doing at scale. The company upcycles farm surplus and fresh-cut remnants into flavor-packed pantry staples like slow-cooked pasta sauces and low-sodium broth concentrates. On this episode of Food Lab Talk, you’ll hear about how Anna and the team at Matriark developed a new supply chain to support upcycling, why she decided to start a packaged food company after an already impressive career in public service, and her advice for growing a team at a purpose-driven organization.

Anna Hammond: “The whole consumer package goods industry is very slow, and I'm very impatient. I was quite naive when I went into that thinking that, okay, well food service is big. Items are bought in pallets, not in units… and it just seemed like if our main goal was to divert, wasted food from landfill, feed large numbers of people, healthy food, and create more revenue streams for farmers, we should go for the big sales and the big impact.”

01:06 Intro to Anna

03:14 Matriark Foods’s mission and impact

04:28 The “why” that catalyzed Anna to found Matriark Foods

07:20 Anna’s first major roadblock: finding a copacker for her products

09:14 How ingenuity led to the launch of Matriark

11:48 Focusing on foodservice channels to maximize impact

15:30 Pivoting the business while staying true to the value proposition

17:31 Lessons learned while developing an upcycled product

19:14 The traits Anna seeks when building purpose-driven teams

20:19 What changemakers can learn from free climbers

21:48 Balancing the business to accelerate systems change

25:36 Anna’s advice for the next generation of changemakers

26:27 ATX Free Fridge Project and Matriark

29:38 Matriark’s newest product

Links

●      Learn more about Matriark Foods

●      Shop for Matriark Foods online

●      ATX Free Fridge Project

●      The New York Times: Eliminating Food Waste One Sauce at a Time

●      Thrillist: Matriark Turns Wasted Vegetables into Climate-Friendly Pantry Staples

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*The views expressed by the guests in this podcast don't necessarily represent the host’s views, nor those of his employer.