Startups utilize food waste

Plastics or cosmetics made from espresso coffee grounds, a plastic substitute from banana peels, yogurt packaging or even pizza boxes, animal feed with protein from worms that feed on fruit, vegetable and even beer waste: These are some Greek-origin green ideas that attempt to utilize tons of waste food or plastic, reintroducing products made with strange ingredients to the market.

"We have customers who make feed with the main protein, the protein from the insects that we produce," Fotis Fotiadis, co-founder and CEO of Better Origin, tells Kathimerini.

The company, through its own unit, turns fruit and vegetable waste into feed for pets, chicken and fish. Key to this process is worms, known as black soldier flies, which consume the waste and convert it into protein and fat. "Whereas we used to feed the worm to the hens, now we process it, produce protein and fat in...