Announcing in.gredients

Glean Organics is one prong of a larger…pitchfork? Anyway, forget the metaphor – the team at Brothers Lane, our parent company, has been busy plotting how we can improve ourselves while contributing to the sustainability of human life on earth. We’ve considered non-profit and for-profit endeavors; we’ll likely pursue both. We like the triple-bottom-line, for-profit model – after all, the economy drives the world and the businesses that drive the economy have a profound impact on today and tomorrow.

So we’re excited to announce our newest project, in.gredients, designed to eliminate packaging waste and food waste at the grocery store. Packaging, usually made of plastic, has a very short functional life and an incredibly long life as waste – which chokes waterways and fills the land for centuries. Food waste is yet another major issue with our modern food system. Glean Organics was created to keep food waste out of landfills, but a dirty secret of the food system is tons (actually millions of tons) of nutritious, healthy food is never eaten-it is discarded because of cosmetic problems, overly cautious Use By dates, and our general fear of food. 40 percent of what we grow is discarded. While this happens at ever step in the food chain, from farm to fork, in.gredients works to eliminate wasted food at every level. Working with local farmers, selling bulk items, and integrating into the local community in.gredients allows customers to get exactly what they need when they need it. We’re really excited to bring this project to life in Austin in 2011.