This week on The Nick Halaris Show we are featuring Ben Kuethe Oaks, the Vice President and General Manager at Divert, a circular economy company on a mission to prevent food from being wasted through nationwide infrastructure and innovative technologies. We waste a staggering amount of food here in America—something like 40% of everything we produce. Meanwhile, there are over 40M food insecure households in America alone and millions more around the world. Something is not right here!

Ready to dive in? Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and YouTubeor on your favorite podcast platform.

I wanted to have Ben on the show to learn more about Divert’s inspiring mission and business and to try to understand just how our food economy evolved to such an inefficient situation. Divert—a company building sustainable business models that prevent waste, provide more for the food insecure, and use food waste as a sustainable fuel—is an inspiring example of the power of using business as a force for good.

Tune in to this important episode to learn:

• What “circular economy” mean and how Divert is using circular principles to create a whole new kind of capitalistic enterprise
• How we waste such a staggering amount of food in this country and why it’s such a huge problem (i.e. food insecurity, rapidly shrinking landfill capacity, methane emissions, and farming economics)
• What Divert is doing to try to ameliorate the situation and why they are so optimistic they can make a big difference

&

• Much, much more

Stay tuned to the end to learn how a usual childhood interest in dairy farming led Ben to his path as a mission-driven business leader focused on the food economy. If you are interested in learning more about the history behind the evolution of this crazy food wastage situation, check out Ben’s Tedx talk.

Thank you for tuning in!

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