As Anna Hammond was building a healthy eating program for families living in the city’s public housing through her job as executive director of the Sylvia Center, a Bronx-based nonprofit focused on providing education on healthy food to children, she saw the amount of food going to waste, and the environmental, social and economic impacts of throwing it all away.
In 2018 Hammond founded Matriark Foods, based in Midtown Manhattan, seeking to address the repercussions of food waste by diverting and “upcycling” produce that might be sent to the landfill—releasing toxic greenhouse gasses into the air. The company partners with farmers and produce-processing facilities to receive their imperfect and surplus vegetables and scraps, which Matriark then uses to create pasta sauces, broth concentrates, soups and stews.
“We look at what is being thrown out that's usable, which is a lot, and we develop from that, much like a gardener does in the summer,” said Hammond. “It's like, you see what's in your garden, and ‘Oh my goodness! The tomatoes are exploding! We have to make tomato pie. We have to make tomato soup. We have to can tomatoes for the winter.’ It's there in front of you, and you use it. That's kind of what we're doing at scale.”