Dive Brief:

• A Nashville-area startup is working to transform the capital of country music into an active center of composting, and a recently landed high-profile job is helping it along. The Compost Company has inked a contract with the Music City Center to recycle chicken dinners from the convention center.
• Unlike some large cities such as Seattle and New York, which have food composting laws in the works, Ashland City, TN-based The Compost Company has no such official seal of approval to help it along.
• But others are taking notice, and backing the firm. The Compost Co. recently got $165,000 in funding to update it Nashville facility. The company sells its compost to farms in Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky.

Dive Insight:

While composting food scraps and yard waste is a trick most gardeners know of and which many use, a lot of the public is unaware of how much food waste can be diverted from landfills and transformed into compost. Music City Center in Nashville last year created eight tons of compostable food waste, according to its own records.

There is something fitting about food waste being converted into compost and other products that are then used for agriculture. A lot more of this food waste could be used such a way. With more than 800 banquets served last year at the convention center, it amounts to quite a lot of recycled chicken dinners for The Compost Co. It also adds up to opportunities for companies much smaller than the convention center, but located near it, to take advantage of the food composting service.