Qualitative exploration of community composting business models in the U.S.

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Wasted food is a global sustainability challenge with major economic, environmental, and social impacts. In the U.S., most wasted food is generated by households and ultimately landfilled. Consumer uptake of waste diversion strategies, such as residential composting, remains low due to factors such as cost, inconvenience, lack of knowledge, and perceptions that handling food waste is unpleasant. In response, community composting services are emerging and growing across the U.S. as a convenient option for curbside collection, transportation, and composting of household food waste. This study explores the motivations, operations, challenges, and opportunities underlying the community composting business model to better understand the role and contribution such a service can play in the food waste management ecosystem. Qualitative data were collected using semi-structured interviews with owners, founders, and employees of fee-based community composting firms and analyzed using grounded theory. One key finding is that community composting firms all share a similar overarching business model, but specific aspects of their operations are differentiated by local markets, customer inputs, and economic context. These firms are typically founded with strong environmental and societal objectives and provide multiple benefits, including filling a gap in regions lacking food waste alternatives, recovering organic resources for use in local food systems, and educating consumers and raising awareness about composting more broadly. However, community composters often struggle to maintain economic viability, particularly with high costs of labor, fuel, land, and infrastructure, underscoring the need for policy, economic, and consumer education interventions that can enable expansion of this business model.