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Rethink 

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Business case

Impact on the availability of resources as well as their effect on living organisms, ecosystems, and components of the environment.

Ecological Impact

Impacts on the financial condition of a company, as well as the the economicconditions of its stakeholders and on economic systems at local, national, andglobal levels.

Economic Impact

Direct and indirect effects that increase revenues or the potential for new revenues, for example from new products, customer segments, partnerships or business models

Revenue Potential

Efficiency gains on operations or transactions either through cultural or technological shifts

Productivity

Scalability

Minimise waste through diversion: Instead of sending waste to landfill, it is redirected into other industrial processes for handling, treatment, recycling, recovery, or reuse in various forms. 

Minimise waste through design: At the outset of a process of project, plan and design such that there is zero waste or minimal waste during production, use, and at end of life. 

Minimise Waste (SDG12)

Producing agricultural products and processing them into food and beverageproducts for consumption

Agri/Food

Consider opportunities to create greater value and align incentives that build on the interaction between products and services

Rethink the business model

Employ technologies to gather and analyse data to provide insights on resource use

Data and insights

Employ online platforms to connect and improve information sharing between stakeholders

Digital platforms

Developing or utilising online platforms to enable circular economy opportunities through information, product or service offering

Online platforms

Impacts

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Industries

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The principles of a circular economy concern designing out waste, regenerating ecosystems and keeping items in use. Decoupling the economy from material flows—improving the rate of resource productivity faster than the economic growth rate—is also a consistent guide. By evolving with the growing number of applications of circular economy principles, and consolidating these strategies across thematic areas, Circle Economy’s Key Elements Framework (KE) renders the elements of the circular economy salient and serves as a basis to derive contextual strategies and interventions. 


The Framework consists of:
- Core Elements: Activities directly handling product or material flows; and uniquely,
- Enabling Elements: those that remove obstacles for core actors.


Key elements of the circular economy

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Circle Economy's framework of strategies and activities that define the circular economy

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Based on the work of [Bocken et al. (2016)](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309699661_Product_design_and_business_model_strategies_for_a_circular_economy), the Four Flows Framework serves as a simple framework for managing resource flows in a circular economy by using less (Narrow), using for longer (Slow), using again (Cycle), and using clean, regenerative materials and energy (Regenerate).

These different principles of circular economy can be applied to our socioeconomic metabolism: we can design stocks like buildings, infrastructure, machinery, and vehicles to be rich resource mines for the future, and design manufactured goods and consumables to be cycled and made regenerative. Furthermore, the focus must also centre on getting more value out of fewer materials. Achieving the aims of a circular economy—minimising material use, regenerating the Earth, and preventing material losses—can be done through these four key strategies mentioned above.

Source: Circle Economy. (2023). *[The circularity gap report 2023](https://www.circularity-gap.world/2023)* (p.22). Amsterdam: Circle Economy. 

Four Flows Framework

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The industry’s only purpose-built sales and analytics platform designed to digitize liquidation processes and bring a first-class experience to the secondary market.Request a DemoSlow moving inventory is bad news for everyone. Spoiler Alert introduces intelligence and automation into existing workflows to deliver more sales, faster service, and an improved customer experience.Build custom offer sheets in just a few seconds.Make more informed and rapid purchasing decisions.Allocate inventory with greater speed and intelligence.Our customers recover more value from their distressed inventory - good for the planet, good for their discount retail and nonprofit partners, and good for their bottom line.FOR SUPPLIERSDigitize your liquidation efforts and maximize value recoveryAdd greater efficiency, intelligence, and velocity to your liquidation program, resulting in stronger customer relationships and more sales.More for SuppliersFOR BUYERSExperience a better approach to opportunistic purchasingAccess more inventory with greater ease and shelf life and secure the best products to meet your evolving customers’ demands.More for Buyers 

  Technology is making it easier for businesses to track their inventory and make smarter decisions about where it should go and how it can be utilized most effectively. One of the more exciting applications of this capability is the potential that it offers to the massive problem of food waste. Each year the United States spends an estimated $218 Billion on costs associated with food that is simply never eaten.[i] Boston-based startup ‘Spoiler Alert’ sees this extraordinary wastefulness as an untapped opportunity.
Who is impacted by food waste?

Food Industry: Food is lost at every step of the supply chain – farms, storage, processing, distribution, and retail. Losses occur due to the difficulty of forecasting demand, food safety scares, labor shortages, unmarketable yield, refrigeration disruptions, and many other reasons.[ii] Because of these losses, the food industry forfeits many billions of dollars each year.
Consumers: Approximately 25% of food purchased by American families is thrown out due to spoilage, confusion over expiration dates, and lack of awareness. This amounts to approximately $1400-$2300 in annual waste for households.[iii]
Food-insecure Households:7% of US householders experience food insecurity at some point during the year. This amounts to 15.8 million people who weren’t confident that they had the resources necessary to meet their basic needs.[iv] This waste makes food less affordable for these families since the expectation of excess is built into the cost of food.
The Environment: Approximately 52 million tons of food are sent to landfills each year.[v] Decaying food waste generates methane which is a greenhouse gas 21 times stronger than CO2.[vi]

What is Spoiler Alert?
Spoiler Alert seeks to combat this problem by offering 2 core software solutions:

Marketplace – By connecting entities in the food business with those who want it, the Spoiler Alert Marketplace provides a mechanism to prevent spoilage by generating an accessible secondary market for at-risk food. Food businesses and farms can create easy listings for food that would otherwise go to waste. ‘Buyers’ like non-profits can then log-in and easily indicate interest in a particular offering. Once the transaction is complete, the system creates a report that allows the food business to set goals, easily quantify and share success, and provides email documentation of the transaction for tax-benefit tracking and accounting.[vii] Per one non-profit recipient of donations through the tool, “Spoiler Alert connects us to donations we might not otherwise know about.”[viii] To fund operations, Spoiler Alert takes a cut of any sales that are made through its platform.[ix]
Enterprise – The enterprise platform is designed as an inventory management tool which helps businesses track and manage unsold food items. The core customers for this feature are wholesale distributors, food manufacturers, and grocery retailers. It provides item-level tracking functionality for corporate food donations, accounting tools to calculate tax deductions, and a tracker for financial, social, and environmental metrics. The tool should incentivize food businesses to think consciously about their food waste and easily set related goals so they can share results with customers and other interested stakeholders.[x]

How’s it going? Spoiler Alert currently has 200 organizations using their service throughout New England and they are growing at 15% each month. They recently received a $2.5 Million seed investment to continue to expand operations.[xi] The company has been helped by a commercial food-waste ban which passed in Massachusetts back in 2014. Businesses that generate more than 1 ton of waste each week are subject to the ban which makes the Spoiler Alert Marketplace an excellent resource for the 1,700 companies seeking to comply with the policy.[xii]
What’s next?
At this point in its lifecycle, Spoiler Alert is focused on the right things – making the necessary investments to drive adoption, iterating on the services they offer, and proving the viability of the business. Though it’s clear that Spoiler Alert’s online tools will have value for many food businesses and non-profits, here are a few things they should consider as they grow:

The revenue strategy of taking a cut of sales from the Marketplace works if there are many paid transactions flowing through the platform – since many of the ‘sales’ will be donations they should be wary to ensure the transaction volume will be enough to cover the costs of operations and generate profits.
They should consider a plan to ease the logistics associated with deliveries rather than relying on each party to pick-up and drop-off.
While the platform helps mitigate the loss associated with food waste, it doesn’t address the root causes. They should use the data they obtain and publish it for the industry so that institutions can have a granular understanding about the greatest sources of waste. Ultimately, their goal should be to put themselves out of business.

789 words
Image Source[xiii] [i] “Welcome to ReFED.” Food Waste: ReFED | Rethink Food Waste. Accessed November 18, 2016. http://www.refed.com/?sort=economic-value-per-ton.
[ii] Gunders, Dana. “Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill.” NRDC. Accessed November 18, 2016. https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/wasted-food-IP.pdf.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] “Key Statistics and Graphics.” USDA ERS. Accessed November 18, 2016. http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/key-statistics-graphics.aspx.
[v] “Welcome to ReFED.” Food Waste: ReFED | Rethink Food Waste. Accessed November 18, 2016. http://www.refed.com/?sort=economic-value-per-ton.
[vi] “Information Sources.” USDA Office of the Chief Economist. Accessed November 18, 2016. http://www.usda.gov/oce/foodwaste/sources.htm.
[vii] “Watch the Demo Video.” Spoiler Alert. Accessed November 18, 2016. http://info.foodspoileralert.com/watch-product-demo?submissionGuid=25fb3ab0-2d9f-4313-aa27-c9ddc39e5518.
[viii] “Non-profits.” Spoiler Alert. Accessed November 18, 2016. https://www.foodspoileralert.com/nonprofits.
[ix] Newberry, Laura. “MIT Grads Launch Online Marketplace Spoiler Alert to Connect Nonprofits with Surplus Food.” Masslive.com. 2015. Accessed November 18, 2016. http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2015/11/mit_grads_launch_online_market.html.
[x] “Enterprise.” Spoiler Alert. Accessed November 18, 2016. https://www.foodspoileralert.com/enterprise.
[xi] Vanni, Olivia. “‘Spoiler Alert’ Raises $2.5M Seed for a Food Waste Solution.” BostInno. 2016. Accessed November 18, 2016. http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2016/11/16/spoiler-alert-tax-deductions-for-food-donations-to-nonprofits/.
[xii] Jay, Jason, Sergio Gonzalez, and Marine Gerard. “Sustainability-Oriented Innovation: The More the Merrier.” MIT Sloan Management Review. January 12, 2016. Accessed November 18, 2016. Sustainability-Oriented Innovation: The More the Merrier.
[xiii] “Pilot Scheme Shows Promise.” SlowFood. Accessed November 18, 2016. http://www.slowfood.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pilot-scheme-shows-promise-in-repurposing-commercial-food-wastes.jpg.  

Boston

Liquidate excess and short-dated inventory

The industry’s only purpose-built sales and analytics platform designed to digitize liquidation processes and bring a first-class experience to the secondary market.

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Spoiler Alert

<p>Spoiler Alert is a Boston based B2B technology platform that aims to help food manufacturers, wholesale distributors, and grocery retailers manage unsold inventory more effectively. Alongside, it is also a marketplace that facilitates the movement of food-'at risk of expiry', to secondary markets for sale/ as a donation.</p>