Louise Fritjofsson is reducing food waste with Martie

SHACK15’s Journal spoke with member Louise Fritjofsson about the launch of her new startup, Martie, a new online grocery store offering brands like Kettle, Stacy’s, Kind and Luna at 40-70% off. The company helps these brands distribute their overstock inventory caused by seasonal production, package changes or simply producing more than they can get out, instead of going to waste. A staggering 30-40% of all packaged foods end up in landfill due to these issues, even though the foods are perfectly safe and delicious to consume. That’s where Martie comes in. They save this food, and in the process, make quality food more accessible to more people.

SHACK15: What is your background and how did the idea for Martie come about?

Fritjofsson: I've been a tech entrepreneur since the age of 19. I’ve built and sold e-commerce, marketplace and ad network companies. When I became a mom 4 years ago, my passion moved towards the health of my children and the environment they’d live in. I decided to shift my focus and be a champion for sustainability and health in the food system. After testing a few ideas, I met my co-founder Kari Morris, who's not only a seasoned and experienced food operator and entrepreneur, but a real boss lady and a mother. We started working on solutions to make “better for you” foods more accessible and sustainable - a quest that led us to launch 5 food brands. Through this, we ran into the issue of overstock inventory. With such a massive amount of food going to waste (108B lbs in the US annually) and with over 13M food insecure American families, we decided to embark on a solution. We began work on Martie in January 2021, and opened our (digital) doors to shoppers in November in California, launching with more than 400 unique products and over 300 brands on the site with the target of being nationwide by Q1 next year.

SHACK15: Food waste has become a global issue that somehow is not frequently discussed. How do you see this changing?

Fritjofsson: There are other companies in the space that have successfully started paving the way to combat food waste in the last few years. The same amount of articles on food waste were published in the first week of 2020 compared to all of 2016. People and companies are becoming more aware - and companies like ours bear a big responsibility to further educate the consumer and our partners in order to turn things around. No one company can do it alone, which is why we are proud to introduce Martie, which has a very specific focus, to keep packaged goods out of landfill.

SHACK15: How did you procure the partnerships for the goods that you sell on your platform?

Fritjofsson: We work directly with brands and distributors, to help them solve the problem of waste by finding new homes, and new customers, for their products, while helping them reach their sustainability and ESG goals. We are excited to highlight partner brands of Martie, and provide savings reports back to them that they can in turn share with their customers and support their brand initiatives.

Fritjofsson and co-founder Kari Morris

SHACK15: What is your favorite product on Martie? Or favorites if there's more than one!

Fritjofsson: It’s not all about what I love, what my kids love dictates a lot of my Martie items! The baby puffs are a lifesaver when I bring my 7 month old out to dinner, or for plane rides. My personal favorites are the case pack of Almond Kind Bars, Stacy’s Pita Chips, Popchips Popcorn and Sir Kensington’s dressings. The ground coffee from Sister’s Coffee has become a staple in my house for my husband and me. The fun part about Martie is there is always something new to discover. Everything on the site meets our standard of “would we feed this to our families?” We ban ingredients that cause harm and proudly list those banned ingredients on our site.

SHACK15: What are some other practical solutions to reducing food waste that we should be paying more attention to?

Fritjofsson: Choose where you shop: Support stores that work directly with local food banks and homeless shelters when they have food they can’t sell. Where you spend your money matters. (Note: Martie works closely with the Alameda County Community Food Bank on their initiatives)

Store your food smart: Fortunately, the internet has many tips on how to store your food to make it last longer. We love the ZeroWasteFoodGuide.

Plan! Plan your week and your month of meals, and try to buy only what you need!

Use your leftovers in your next meal! 

Bought too much? Most items can be stored in the freezer and brought out at a later time to be consumed! 

First In, First Out: When stocking up on pantry items, make sure that whatever you put in first, is the first thing you use. That way, you never lose a can of corn in the back that expired 2 years ago!