Re-Nuble Secures $1.1M to Reduce Food Waste and Enable Closed-Loop Food Production in Indoor Farms

    NEW YORK, NY, November 27, 2020 /24-7PressRelease/ -- While volunteering as an SAT-prep teacher in 2012 in New York City, Pina saw firsthand how limited healthy food options impacted her own students' productivity, affecting their future. Pulled towards the mission of improving local food production, she created the innovative agtech company, Re-Nuble.

"I felt there was a unique opportunity to use the waste stream...to catalyze more sustainable growing near urban areas, especially as people are becoming more interested in evaluating food sources for sustainability." – Tinia Pina

The need for more resilient food production and distribution as well as how to utilize New York City's growing food waste volume was top of mind to Pina. She was intimately familiar with how hard it was to grow using biological inputs as an alternative to conventional fertilizers and wanted to design a technology and method to provide comparable production to the usage of industry substitutes, conventional mineral salts. By designing a way to utilize food waste to close the gap both in pricing, availability, and consistency, with her team, Pina developed an innovative way to catalyze more sustainable and/or organic certified food production for indoor farms.

"We spent a seven years studying various food waste characterizations and their biochemical reactions when applied under varying environmental controls for a set of specialty crop varieties. To deliver a biologically enhanced product that can proliferate in a sterile environment while being compatible with increasingly automated, precision technologies has always been a tall order. However, we remain committed to this mission so that our food producers can more profitably grow per square foot of operation while using food waste as an alternative input source. It is our goal to increase their profitability and to incorporate more impact to the nutrition of their products. We know that we have succeeded when we have helped them become more profitable, more sustainable by a calculated lowered footprint for their buyers (both consumer and retail), and competitive by supplying organic produce at prices comparable to conventional. This is the formulation for creating a strong brand story." – Tinia Pina

Headquartered in New York City, Re-Nuble's proprietary technology, driven by Organic Cycling Science™ (OCS), fills the critical food production market needs.

By working with a national logistics partner and diverting unrecoverable, consistent volumes of vegetative food waste from landfills for food manufacturers, distributors, and processors, Re-Nuble is able to create commercial-grade organic hydroponic nutrients containing amino acids, growth promoters, and vitamins. Their second technology, On-site Food Waste Recovery System captures residual product waste such as plant matter (e.g. vines, leaf cuttings, and perishable produce) as well as a farm's wastewater for conversion into sterilized biostimulants and potable water. These byproducts are then reused for reduced water and agricultural input consumption.

Geared towards the full spectrum of soilless farms, from small to enterprise-level, their biologically enhanced nutrient products enhance plant yields and strengthen defenses against environmental stressors. The need for synthetic nitrogen fertilizers is reduced, if not completely eliminated.

• On average, 30 to 40% of all US food ends up as refuse; approximately 126 million tons valuing a staggering $218 billion.
• Organic food sales for FY2019 increased 5% y-o-y, outpacing the growth rate of 2% for total food sales, thus creating a high demand for cost-effective organic fertilizers ($3.2 billion serviceable addressable market).
• Production and use of synthetic mineral salts contribute to significant greenhouse gas emissions. Overapplication in food systems elicits both soil and water degradation.

In typical food production, a linear model of "take, make, waste" is implemented. Raw materials come in, products are manufactured and consumed, and surplus materials are discarded. Highly inefficient and wasteful, farms have little buffer against adversity.

Nutrient cycling mimics the natural ecosystem by recycling resources until they have little to no usable value, converting the traditional linear production model to a sustainable, closed-loop system. Efficiency and resiliency are markedly improved.

"Higher quality doesn't mean higher cost, because, with closed-loop agriculture, we're just turbo-charging how nature was designed to be."

Re-Nuble's organic hydroponic nutrients are a price comparable option for soilless farms compared to conventional mineral salts. Currently, the only commercially used organic alternative is up to 69% more expensive. A price-competitive option lets farmers produce chemical-free food while boosting their net income -- a novel concept in organic systems.

The invested seed round monies will expand their team, advancing sales and marketing support to their rapidly growing base of clientele.

ABOUT RE-NUBLE
Re-Nuble is an agriculture technology company that uses organic cycling science to convert vegetative food waste into organic hydroponic nutrients for soilless farms. We are the world's enabler of closed loop food, efficiently recirculating natural resources from waste streams and the food system. Our Away We Grow liquid organic hydroponic nutrient allows soilless farms to rapidly use mineralized organic nitrate, amino acids, growth promoters, vitamins, and a full spectrum of micronutrients for quicker plant uptake and yields. It is designed as a two-product nutrient system that allows nutrients to be absorbed both at the root level as well as on the leaves by way of our biostimulant foliar spray. Synergistically, these two products (foliar spray and organic hydroponic nutrient concentrate) work together to provide growth without the excessively high nitrate concentration normally found in conventional mineral salts, causing the need to dump nutrient water.

Re-Nuble is a former incubated portfolio company of CEBIP.

For more information, please visit www.re-nuble.com and follow @Re_Nuble on Twitter and https://www.facebook.com/ReNuble on Facebook.

ABOUT THE CLEAN ENERGY BUSINESS INCUBATOR PROGRAM AT STONY BROOK UNIVERSITY
Funded by the New York State Energy Research and Development Agency (NYSERDA), the Clean Energy Business Incubator Program (CEBIP) at Stony Brook University has been in operation since October 2011 providing assistance and resources for developers of renewable and clean-energy technologies. Through the expertise, business acumen and technological resources of CEBIP's management team, advisory board, researchers at Stony Brook University and other extensive partnerships, CEBIP helps bridge the gap between innovation and market with a full commitment to helping entrepreneurs develop and commercialize clean-energy technology. CEBIP provides resources for clean-energy innovators that include mentorship at various stages of entrepreneurial development, guidance for business and strategic plans, and assistance in preparing for and locating funding opportunities. CEBIP's goal is to develop a successful clean-energy economy on Long Island, creating high-paying "cleantech" jobs and industry within Long Island and New York State.

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