Mill : innovating to end food waste.
A story of incremental innovations to fight climate change.
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We all have the memory of a food plate we didn’t want to eat as kids. For me, it’s was the spinach plate in front of my nanny's killer eyes starring at me. We were 4 kids around the kitchen table, and none of them left a crumb. I felt so ashamed … So it was painful, but I had to finish.
Food waste seems like an unsolvable challenge for mankind, because, collectively, we must rely on each other to find a solution. It’s like on my nanny’s kitchen table. If one of us decide to pollute or waste, why should you not do so? Finally, without individual responsibility, there is no collective action.
What is the solution ? In The Biggest Climate Misteak and The AI door for climate, I've written about the need, with technology, to make the climate fight simpler.
Then, a few months ago, I discovered Mill - a smart bin to recycle food waste from your home kitchen. Mill is building the backend to fight food waste the easiest way possible for consumers. It was founded by Matthew Rogers, one of the cofounder of Nest, which became Google Home. So in this essay, I want to get a little bit deeper and explain why we need incremental changes even more than radical ones, to fight climate change.
Today, collective action is tough because everyone is not willing to change their lifestyle too drastically. It's too heavy a lift. Even if people commit to radical change, they need to maintain it over time.
So how can we encourage changes that last? And how can companies like Mill lead the way to incremental innovations to make it work?
Mill : innovating to end food waste.
The most thought provoking Science Fiction movies I have ever seen is certainly The day the earth stood still. An alien called Klaatu comes on earth to remove all the humans from the planet and save the other species. Humans destroyed earth because they didn’t realize it was one of a kind ecosystem in the universe and Klaatu wants to preserve it at all costs. Of course, like a lot of science fiction movies, there is an ecological narrative behind it.
But perhaps, the most interesting part is at the end of the movie, after Klaatu started the countdown of the apocalypse and humans tried to argue to save themselves. They say “It’s at the border of the cliff that we change”.
I feel the same happens today for climate. People would only react at the very last moment, when there will be no other choice. But that time, it will be too late.
And we can't be certain. A study from the Preventive Medicine Research Institute, has shown that approximately 90% of heart patients can’t change their lifestyles for the better, even when the decision is one of life or death. Why is it so hard?
Radical vs Incremental changes
Of course, everyone urges for radical changes to avoid a climate disaster - stopping the use of oil & gas, avoiding eating meat, degrowth… But collectively, we are not willing to commit. So perhaps, there is an alternative solution to make it work.
Incremental changes come from the productivity and psychology fields. I bet you already came across that notion in the book Atomic Habits from James Clear. By completing a series of small steps and adjustments, we can reach bigger goals. Each step doesn't require a long period of time or an enormous amount of energy. And there is a compound effect so we can tackle bigger steps over time.
So why it's important for fighting climate change? I think one mistake we make is focusing too much on radical innovations (Direct Air Capture, Hydrogen, Fusion). It’s necessary, but paradoxically, it doesn’t encourage people to act. « Why bother changing my lifestyle if technology can save us? ». So I believe, we need as much incremental innovations, than radical ones.
Let’s take the “S-curve concept” to illustrate the life of an innovation. There is always a time-lapse between the creation of a technology and its adoption by users. To make the leap between those two points, we need incremental innovations, which improve a bit. Not all technologies are radical ones and small user experience improvements is sometimes the best way to faster consumer adoption. That’s the same for changing a behaviour.
That's for the theory. Now, how does it look like in practice?
The Mill: incremental changes from your kitchen.
The Mill is a good example of incremental innovation to fight climate change. What strategy does it use and how can we get inspired?
Low time to adoption
Building the backend to end food waste
Gamifying incremental changes
1. Low time to adoption
The Mill had an interesting approach to end food waste because it starts with a very not-sexy object we all know : bin. We all have one. It’s not complicated. But here, the bin is sexy. It reminds me the steak from Juicy Marbles and the strategy to “decomoditize” products. Mill did everything we don’t expect from a bin. It’s funny to imagine an “Awesome bin” and it’s even possible to visualise it in Augmented Reality on their website.
That bin is smart. It turns kitchen scraps into dried, ground-up food called Food Grounds.
2. Building the backend to end food waste
The magic of Mill is certainly everything we don’t see behind the bin. Mill is a subscription business. You pay $33/month for a membership and Mill will reuse “Food grounds” to feed chicken, so your food trash stays in the food system. It’s not just hardware, it’s a full loop.
I call it “the backend” because it’s the necessary infrastructure we need to both simplify the experience from the end user and guarantee a circular model to fight food waste.
3. Gamifying incremental changes
Mill's end goal goes beyond fighting food waste. It’s educating, building habits and creating incremental changes from your home. It’s not a heavy lift. Just buy the bin, throw your food and wait. It comes with an app to track CO2 emissions avoided and your impact over time. I think Mill did a great job gamifying the experience.
Of course, not everyone is willing to pay $33/month for a bin. So it starts with a specific segment of tech enthusiastic (the company is Silicon Valley based).
That being said, Mill is a great example on how we use simple technology to change habits and lifestyle over time.
That’s it for today. Thanks for reading! If you liked it, share with a friend or two concerned by climate change.
Quite an intersection. So the $33 goes toward processing the waste for it to be chicken feed?