‘Setting the table of the future’: This startup founder thinks food can help save the planet

After giving birth to her son in 2018, Julia Collins was searching for a business venture that would make the world a better place. Food seemed like the obvious place for her to start.

“I grew up believing that the best moments in life — the moments when people feel the most connected and open — are when they're sharing food together,” she says. “It just made a lot of sense to see how I might participate in setting the table of the future.”

As a developer of a robot-powered pizza-making business — a role that enshrined her as the first Black woman to co-found a unicorn company — she knew the food and beverage industry was in dire need of help when it came to combatting climate change.

That’s because supply chain emissions, called Scope 3 emissions, account for as much as 95% of overall emissions from large consumer packaged goods companies, food services and restaurant chains. After interviewing nearly 100 industry leaders around the world, Collins learned that, while most companies were eager to do their part to hit the 2050 net-zero goals specified by the Paris Agreement to limit global warming, many were struggling to decarbonize their supply chains. They lacked the tools to identify Scope 3 emissions, much less reduce them.

So, a year later, she started Planet FWD, a company dedicated to empowering food, beverage and other consumer product manufacturers to change the world through sustainability practices. Planet FWD recently joined Start Path In Solidarity, Mastercard’s engagement program for high-growth startups that are at the forefront of technology in commerce and are looking around corners to unlock fintech innovation.

Carbon accounting on this scale is a massive task. For instance, one of Planet FWD’s customers has more than 350,000 individual products, each with its own life cycle. That makes the list of things to be considered, including raw materials, processing methods and packaging, exponentially longer. A human would require months to analyze all that individual product data — if they even had it.

Planet FWD employs machine learning so companies can use all of their data to get an accurate read on emissions and come up with viable solutions.

And that requires very specific data. For example, a company that makes granola bars needs information about every oat, seed, nut and drop of honey that goes into each bar. They also need to know each oat’s origin, since those grown in the western United States would have a very different carbon footprint than oats grown in Australia. And each of those raw ingredients is processed, packaged and transported differently, depending on where they come from and where they’re going. In the past, companies had to use global average carbon data points, which are nowhere near as tailored.

Planet FWD offers technology to provide customers with carbon profiles of the exact ingredients used. A team of climate and data scientists have built a deep database, labeling and training data and creating algorithms to allow them to match products to a true, customized carbon footprint. They then use that platform to identify the sources of greenhouse gases across the entire organization — whether it’s the farm where oats grew or the wharf where they were shipped from Australia to Europe.

Once a client has zoomed in on its emission hot spots, Planet FWD’s climate scientists offer quantified and prioritized suggestions to reduce emissions. 

For Collins, who studied biomedical engineering at Harvard University and earned an MBA from Stanford University, the company is a natural fit. A serial entrepreneur, she launched a babysitting business, a shoeshine service, a bike detailing shop, a car wash and a flower stand — all before turning 18. “For as long as I can remember, I have always been building companies,” she says. “It is the thing that I know how to do better than anything in my life.”

The size of the company shouldn’t matter when it comes to sustainability. While Planet FWD works with major brands, such as Just Salad and Numi Organic Tea, its technology also can work for smaller companies with a handful of products.

“We believe that every person and every organization has the right to be a part of the solution,” Collins says. “Fundamentally, everyone has a role to play to really build toward a future that we all can be excited about.”