Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Heard of fruit jerky? Snact is using it to tackle food waste and poverty. Start-up Snact is using surplus fruit to make its tasty snack. I chat to co-founder Michael Minch-Dixon to learn more about their brand. snact

Here’s the perverse situation – a third of the food we produce in the UK is being wasted. Meanwhile, just under a million people are using food banks. That’s just two of the things start-up Snact wants to address with its fruit jerky. “It’s just completely wrong,” says co-founder Michael Minch-Dixon. The third prong to this stool is that too much power is being held by too few. “How are the supermarkets affecting the price and specifications of food? Should we have a different approach to food where people are more connected to their food supply?”

Prior to Minch-Dixon’s latest venture, he co-founded sustainability consultancy Brite Green, before working in Denmark at renewable energy company Vestas. But meeting with Snact’s now co-founder Ilana Taub kicked off his latest venture. “We’ve been friends for a very long time and coincidentally both of us did the same Masters at Imperial College in Environmental Technology at different times,” Minch-Dixon explains. “At one alumni meeting, we were joking around and saying we could start a business together. From there, we actually started brainstorming ideas focusing on food.” Visiting the market just proved that there was plenty of produce to access that would otherwise be wasted – and the duo started thinking of ways they could use it.

Fruit jerky

That’s when they came up with fruit jerky – which, in case you’re wondering, is mushed up fruit that’s been dehydrated for around eight hours. The crucial USP is that it’s made with surplus fruit, whether it’s the wrong shape, wrong size, or the mismatch between supply and demand would lead to it being wasted. Then, out pops a scrummy fruit snack. “There’s nothing added,” says Minch-Dixon, “No sugar, concentrates or preservatives; it’s just the fruit.”

When you dehydrate it, you take the water away. This leads to a higher concentration of fiber than there is in fresh fruit, but other healthy bits like vitamin C are broken down by light and heat. “I don’t think it’s an unhealthy snack, but it’s not as healthy as eating a piece of fruit,” Minch-Dixon admits. So it’s a good substitute for your chronic Mars Bar habit, but it’s no fresh orange. Adding supplements such as vitamins is certainly possible, but Snact prefer a different angle. “If we start adding things, we lose the fact that our snacks are minimally processed. And we want to keep it that way.”

snact2 Snact co-founders Michael Minch-Dixon and Ilana Taub.

The value chain

Jerky aside, the Snact team have been focused on working with farmers and distributors. “We’ve been trying to engage with people throughout the value chain to understand why it is they’re having surplus food and how it is we can get involved with them,” he explains. One exciting venture for the start-up is collaborating with other charities and businesses that are also using surplus food and thinking about how we create a better solution for it. That includes Food Cycle, Plan Zheros, The Gleaning Network to name a few.

Dipping their toe into working with other organizations raises a number of possibilities. “Can we provide a better solution to farmers or whole sale markets in taking up the food?” The amount of food Snact’s able to take is still quite small, “so it’s often easier for those with surplus to send their produce to an anaerobic digester than to deal with us. But as we scale up our operations, we provide a better channel for their produce.”

Using surplus fruit in theory is advantageous because it’s cheaper, but it’s the logistics that make this saving somewhat oblique. “With conventional fruit, you’ve got the existing supply chain and infrastructure that you can tap into, whilst we’re trying to access food in a slightly non-conventional way so there are higher costs associated with transport, processing, storage etc.”

Results

So what have the tiny team achieved so far? A successful crowdfunding campaign back in May funded their production process. “We found a farm with large dehydrators we didn’t have to invest in it ourselves. With them we’ve made many batches to refine our product and the production process. In doing so we proved that we’re able to produce on a larger scale.”

Minch-Dixon says it’s not the prettiest of products (I disagree), but it’s quite tasty. In fact, he says people are pretty surprised that fruit can pack such a punch. And the good news is consumers are supportive of the story behind Snact, as well as enjoying the snack for itself.

Packaging-wise, there have been some major changes to reflect the increasing batches – something that’s been a serious headache in terms of ensuring good environmental credentials. The original artisanal-style bags (“hand packed and very expensive”) have been replaced with conventional plastic packaging, something that not only is better at preserving the content but has improved environmental credentials. “Now we’re looking to produce thousands instead of hundreds of units, we have to go to an automated solution,” Minch-Dixon says, but admits, “It’s not the sort of outcome I was expecting to find,” as compostable and biodegradable packaging didn’t turn out to be a good solution .

snact3 Old bags... snact4 ...new bags.

Food poverty

Snact wants to shake up the usual way food poverty is tackled, and aims to provide job opportunities to people affected by food poverty with, rather than them continuing to rely on a charity. To get things rolling, it’s been talking with a number of homeless charities to explore if there’s an avenue there. Plus, it’s exploring how it can leverage its partnerships to see if together, they can create joint employment opportunities for people affected by food poverty. In the meantime, the foodie firm is launching its “Snactscription” model, where offices can get a monthly delivery of snacts. “If we get enough offices to sign up, then we’ll be able to hire someone to do those deliveries,” Minch-Dixon says.

Neither of the co-founders had experience in food or food marketing when they started, so they’ve learned a few lessons along the way – and it sounds like they’re a productive bunch. “We’ve got a few internal mottos at Snact: one of them is give a shit and get shit done.” The other learning, he says, is that “people are massively helpful. There’s been one person so far who we’ve contacted who hasn’t taken the time and helped us out.”

Vegetables and beyond

Once it’s got its fruit jerky up and running, Snact’s next obvious venture is with vegetables, Minch-Dixon says. But more broadly, the brand doesn’t have to just be associated with food waste. “We see it as a food brand that is using products to tackle a number of issues within the food system,” Minch-Dixon explains. “We might launch products that are relatively conventional food products, but with a very clear social impact, or might choose completely different types of environmental challenges, and use food to tackle those.”

In essence: “food is a good platform for tackling social and environmental issues.” It might seem like choosing a snack makes little difference, but choosing one with a social mission can make a small positive change. “And because people are snacking all the time, you can multiply that small difference by hundreds, millions of tiny events then you actually get to make a big impact.” That’s a tasty way to make a difference if you ask me.