We hear a lot about the need to cut down on food waste. For instance perfectly good food that is left over in stores and restaurants routinely gets thrown out. Meanwhile some adults and children in the San Diego area are routinely going hungry. Two San Diego State students are coming up with an inspired idea to address this problem. The project has one at international price. The environmental cooperation youth innovation challenge. Before Christian and Ryan headed to Canada to present their idea they spoke with us I will start off with you and say you have developed's pick this -- business idea. Tell us about it. It is basically taking the restaurant surplus food waste every night. Volume restaurants tend to oversupply on. All of the nutritious food that gets tossed away every night. We saw a big issue of that we both work at restaurants here in San Diego. We decided to do something about it instead of just open the food away use it and make a food product that we can then sell to people and you a one-to-one model. So for everyone bar product that we sell give one and donate one to a food relief organization. The sense really innovative. What kind of problems are you thinking you can make out of food waste. Our first idea was going to be a protein powder because they have very similar ingredients listed in them that we can seem to run away every day. What sort of ingredients are they? Brown Rice and Kumar of art one of the of grains and also there is a lot of juice in San Diego. Multiple juice bars juice things from kale to apples to carrot. Other water nutrients get lost but they still retain lots of vitamins and fiber. We see that as potential and not waste. One important aspect of the idea is the one-on-one match. Tell us more about that. The root just started with seeing the amount of food waste and the amount of people that go to sleep hungry every night. It really was to bridge the gap between food waste and the food insecure. That is really where it started. Actually it is a kind of a cool story where this all began when we became so frustrated with them just throwing away pounds and pounds of rice quinoa just completely edible. One day after Rick we told our chef please do not throw this away we will take it. Actually took an entire trait Brown was -- brown rice quinoa to get to our apartment in the to San Diego and just delivered it. We want down and delivered it to the homeless people on the street. As rewarding as that felt it was emotionally and time consuming. We said there has to be a better system. There has to be a better way that we can give the food to the people who need it the most. Not just any food but nutritious food it was not set in stone until one day just as crazy as this sounds just walking on the protein I out and sprout and I picked up a bottle and read the back of the nutrition facts and I see that the first ingredient on there was dehydrated brown rice and dehydrated -- dehydrated quinoa and dehydrated greens. You have carrots and kale and celery and all those nutrients that we see everyday being thrown away in a restaurant that's when the lightbulb switched on. I pulled Kristi aside and I was like I've got it. This is what we have to do. It kind of grew and evolved from there. Off of you are studying at San Diego State. Christian you are an environmental science and psych double major. How much help to you both get to dispel -- to develop this idea as part of your academic coursework It is where environmental science major came involved. Also building this business and see in the future customer base and and just understanding how people just react and participate with our movement and psychology definitely then underline an understanding with that. I would say they intertwine a little bit Do you think they have trouble selling something that is coming from waste. We see a lot of people get very excited so we will have to see how. The scale people will be are excited to be on board with us. So you have developed this idea in phases. Tell us a little bit more about how it evolved. I will definitely credit San Diego state for a lot of the building of the idea I studied nutrition and I have been fortunate enough to work in a nutrition lab where we can study the amount of protein and carbs and fat and all of the micro and macro nutrients. Being able to have access to those tools in the labs I felt that this idea was kind of feasible. Have an idea in my mind and then going to work and using it has helped with the progress. The initial stage started out with the idea and grew when we created partnerships with our local restaurants. It was the restaurant that we work with and the local juice bar around the area. Right now we are son the pilot stage but it is really good when we are working and really helping us when we are working to they are really excited about the project. How close are you to bring it to the public. Currently we are looking to sell at farmers market mid September or October. We will be finalizing our actual recipe when she gets back from Brazil hopefully by the end of the summer we will have a recipe and after licensing kitchen facilities we will be able to produce it. That is a lot of work.
While working as servers at a local restaurant, San Diego State University students Kristian Krugman and Reyanne Mustafa became frustrated by the sight of unserved food being thrown out each night.
That frustration eventually led them to dream up the idea to turn food waste, such as quinoa, brown rice and fruit and vegetable pulp, into protein powder, bars and cookies.
The soon-to-be college seniors said the company that grew out of that idea, SoulFULL, will donate one item for every item sold.
"The root of SoulFull just started with seeing the amount of food waste and then seeing the amount of people that go to sleep hungry every night, so it really was to bridge the gap between food waste and the food insecure," Mustafa said.
Krugman and Mustafa were one of three teams to win the Commission for Environmental Cooperation Youth Innovation Challenge. They are presenting their idea to environmental leaders from U.S., Mexico and Canada on Wednesday.
On Tuesday's Midday Edition, Krugman and Mustafa discussed their idea and the plan to bring it to the public.
