TabeMaru

Fostering Japanese agricultural resilience by reclaiming nutrients from restaurant food waste, redistributing them to farmers as organic fertiliser.

Long description

To enable a more resilient food system in Japan, we need to rely less on imports from a volatile world and shift to more sustainable, circular agricultural practices.

We are prototyping a system for restaurants that hosts a colony of black soldier flies (known as BSF) which turn food waste into organic fertiliser. After placing food scraps in self-contained units, the BSF larvae quickly and efficiently decompose the waste on-site, resulting in up to a 95% reduction in volume thus negating the need for frequent disposal. The system detects when the processed matter (frass) is ready and automatically separates it from unprocessed food. The system then facilitates shipping the frass to farms where it can be used to fertilise new crops.

By capturing nutrients from urban food waste and returning them to rural farms, we envision a future in which Japan’s food system forms a closed and sustainable loop.