Dive Brief:

• Due to the large amount of food waste Americans discard each year, two MIT MBA students have started Spoiler Alert, an online market to exchange information about excess, expiring and spoiled food.
• The project, currently in the development stage, is for a mobile app and enterprise software platform that connects food retailers who have massive amounts of organic waste with bio-energy producers, composters and farmers. The food will then be converted into fertilizers and fuel.
• The students are looking at a 2014 launch date to beta test their supply-and-demand food waste database.

Dive Insight:

With Massachusetts' commercial food waste ban starting next fall, and cities such as New York considering similar bans, one of the founders of Spoiler Alert says the time is right for food waste innovation. Curbside collection of organic waste is being tested in certain communities in New Jersey and New York City boroughs. Countless food waste-to-energy projects are underway, including those in Massachusetts and the Empire State.