Ep. 208 - From Chef to Fighting Food Waste with Alison Montford, Founder at Ends and Stems

Alison Montford is the founder of Ends and Stems. A web platform where they send you recipes to help you be more mindful about food waste.

This isn’t the first time around the block for Alison. She’s had a business before and is a master bootstrapper Alison used a ton of tricks that bootstrapped entrepreneurs have to use such as tapping into groups that share, and focusing on your Minimum Viable Product. For example, do you actually need to spend a quarter million on an app? Or would a simple website do?

Also learn with how much the average person wastes and how much CO2 people emit when you waste food using pizza!

Show Notes

What do you tell people you first meet?: I’m a chef with a mission to eradicate food waste I have a web app where I send out ways to reduce food waste using recipes I interviewed over 1000 different families and got a lot of valuable data How did you get 1000 people to answer your survey?: Why are you struggling at dinner time? Viral effect on busy mom’s groups For surveys, you really need to target the target market Yummly How did you develop an app? I talked to a lot of people and a web app is much easier than mobile. Right now, I do it but eventually I want machine learning. However, people charge a ton for AI companies Kapwing – Why most MVPs should be a web app How did you get to where you are today? I studied Anthropology I got a sales job selling cryogenic storage for stem cells Why did you move from New York to San Francisco?: For the adventure One day I googled “What should I do with my life?” and I found “personal chef” Why did you sell a business?: I got burnt out, but it was a really hard decision Tell me about your pizza statistic Impact Consultant The average person wastes a pound of food a day It’s very hard to have people see the value of 1 kilogram of CO2 so we compare it to pizza. We want to target a certain part of food waste, people who pay attention to wasting food now Project Draw Down Paul Hawken ShamePlane.com My Food Job Rocks: I’ve been able to focus on what I’m interested. I’ve always wanted to do something a little bit different What is something in the food industry you’d like to know more about?: Farming Dan Barber: Third Plate What are some helpful resources you use?: Surprisingly, Facebook Groups San Francisco Women Chefs Facebook Group T-shirt company Mini Activists Advice for someone in the food industry: If you have no food industry experience, go volunteer into food How do we find you?: Go to www.endsandstems.com @endsandstems, facebook, etc It’s free for the first two weeks It’s two dollars a week  

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