2018 SXSW Pitch Winner: GrubTubs
The Forrest Four-Cast: October 22, 2018
Some of the world’s most innovative startups are showcased at SXSW Pitch, formerly known as SXSW Accelerator.
If your startup wants to be involved in the 2019 competition, then click here for entry information. But don’t delay on getting involved, because the final entry deadline for SXSW Pitch is Thursday, November 15.
Entrepreneurs, founders, funders, investors and other related professionals will also want to attend these two tracks of programming at SXSW 2019: “Entrepreneurship & Startups” (scheduled March 8–12) and “Tech Industry & Enterprise” (scheduled March 8–13).
Today we catch up with GrubTubs, the company which won the Hyper-Connected Communities category at SXSW Pitch 2018. Other interviews in this series include Vochlea Music, ARwall, DroneSeed, ICON, FutureFuel, and Polyport.
Questions for this GrubTubs interview with answered by Robert Olivier (pictured above), the Founder and CEO of this Austin-based startup.
GrubTubs rethinks food waste by supporting family farms and sustainable cities across Texas by turning food waste into economical animal feed. Would you update us on what you’ve been focusing on since your win at SXSW in March?
Since SXSW in March, GrubTubs has been working hard on gaining increased customer traction and also optimizing GrubTubs operations so that we have the most efficient processes in place for handling food waste. We’ve added 40 new customers, and many of those are large facilities or restaurants with multiple locations. Austin’s Universal Recycling Ordinance passed in October, requiring anyone with a food permit to recycle their food waste, which has kept our zero waste specialists very busy with new clients, as many of them require education on food waste recycling. We’ve grown our farm support staff and our sales team, and are now preparing to scale our operations in other cities.
How are your plans shaping up to expand beyond Austin?
Many of our current Austin clients have locations in other cities and states and have already expressed interest in having GrubTubs services at those locations. SXSW helped GrubTubs gain more recognition nationally, and we have received many requests for services from people who found us via the conference. We are working to determine which cities are the next best markets to enter, but logically, other large Texas cities are going to be the next targets. GrubTubs will be nationwide by 2020.
What should we expect to see from GrubTubs over the rest of 2018 and 2019?
By the end this year, you should see GrubTubs in many of the largest hotels and corporate cafeterias in Austin, and if you look closely, you’ll see our gray and pink tubs outside, where restaurants leave their food waste to be picked up. You won’t smell it, though, even if the tubs have been sitting there for days, which is great. In the places we are providing services, you will see a lot less mess and a lot less trash smell. In 2019, you should see GrubTubs moving into San Antonio, Dallas and Houston, both to large scale facilities and Mom and Pop restaurants.
Hugh Forrest serves as Chief Programming Officer at SXSW, the world’s most unique gathering of creative professionals. He also tries to write at least four paragraphs per day on Medium. These posts often cover tech-related trends; other times they focus on books, pop culture, sports and other current events.
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