A profile series celebrating your stories of small business success. The moments that set you on a path to a more optimistic future and prove why it’s never been a better time to run a small business.
What’s your business name?
When did you start?
The end of 2017.
Where are you located?
Sydney and Gold Coast but all over Australia.
How many in your team?
Two founders and four developers and many along the way.
What’s your proudest business achievement?
I have had many, but I would include being interviewed by the media from home about the work I was doing and my parents finding out and having some understanding what I did. It was also an accurate article on what we did. I don’t speak a lot to my parents and don’t really care for recognition but I was touched my the many messages from others who care about food waste and community support.
What did you do to get there?
I kept producing content which got media, more media and more media:
- Ywaste on Concrete Playground (August 2018)
- Channel 7 news (September 2018)
- SBS article (September 2018) (This one covers a bit more about my story and how it influenced me to create Ywaste)
- Partnership with Foodbank Australia (December 2018)
- Partnership with Muffin Break Australia (December 2018)
- Ywaste on Channel 9 Today Morning Show (December 2018)
How did you celebrate the milestone?
Keep working!
How has your business changed since then?
It has grown and I work more with more councils and universities.
What’s your next goal?
It’s very humbling to see over 550 merchants around Australia and 65,000 users have supported this cause in the last 18 months from the management of some large chains such as Sumo Salad, Muffin Break, Sushi Hub and some institutions such as our Partners Foodbank Australia, FIght Food Waste CRC, numerous universities and councils around Australia and UNICEF as well as overseas partners and supporters.
However it is still the beginning and I think Australia is still in the very early days when it comes to embracing the zero food waste culture so we still have a long way to go. There has definitely been difficult and challenging moments from being written off very early by many people as “this would never work in Australia” but we use this as motivation and I think the more people know about our initiative other similar movements will come up. We will keep working hard, growing and doing our bit in the food waste conversation and keeping humble and staying hungry as always (literally and metaphorically hungry).
Do you have a small business success story to share? We want to hear from you: [email protected]
