Additional subscription options reduce food waste collection costs and frequency.
Chris Tralas, operations manager for Table to Farm Compost, turns over a compost pile at a facility northeast of Durango on June 29, 2023. The composter announced Tuesday it will offer a biweekly service for existing and prospective subscribers who want to compost but don't have enough material to pay monthly for a weekly compost collection service. (Jerry McBride/Durango Herald File)
Table to Farm Compost, a composting company that has partnered with the city of Durango, has added biweekly compost collection to its services after previously only offering weekly collections.
Monique DiGiorgio, co-owner and managing member of Table to Farm, said Thursday that the additional subscription option was added to give customers pricing flexibility and with consideration given to residents who don't produce enough food waste to qualify for the weekly service.
Table to Farm charges $28 per month for its weekly service, and its new biweekly service is $18 per month.
“We listened to your requests,” she said in a news release.
she said Durango Herald In market research conducted by Table to Farm last year, many customers and potential customers expressed a preference for a bi-weekly service.
In this study, subscribers were offered three months of free composting service in exchange for completing surveys at the start and end of their free trial. The surveys were designed to find out why residents were interested in composting and why they continued or canceled their subscriptions after the free service expired.
“Cost is always an issue in a high-cost-of-living place like a city,” she said, “and a lot of people have asked us to bring the cost down a little bit.”
The market research has been a huge boon to the compost business, she said, increasing membership by about 200 people.
“This study just got people into the habit and behavior of composting,” she says. “Once you start, it's really hard to throw food scraps in the bin.”
Since announcing the cheaper, less frequent subscription option earlier this week, Table to Farm has already gained 20 to 30 customers, she said.
Table to Farm Compost has expanded operations significantly this year, composting between 2,000 and 3,000 cubic yards of in-process food waste in multiple 200-foot-long compost rows. (Courtesy of Table to Farm Compost)
DiGiorgio attributes the expanded subscription options to new automated collection route software called StopSuite. The system serves two purposes: It automatically notifies customers of scheduled compost collection dates and automatically creates collection routes so Table to Farm drivers can collect compost as efficiently as possible.
“That would have been a big challenge for us to figure out,” she said of planning the biweekly routes.
The software also includes an online portal that allows customers to view the environmental impact of composting, according to the release.
“We are hopeful that this investment in our business model will bring us one step closer to citywide composting,” said co-owner and managing member Taylor Hanson.
There are approximately 5,600 households in the city of Durango, with approximately 800 currently subscribing to Table to Farm's composting services.
Like Hanson, DiGiorgio said the goal is to get every household to start composting, then expand to La Plata County.
In 2021, Table to Farm entered into a five-year partnership with the City of Durango to promote composting and educate people about its benefits. The partnership was formed with the ambitious goal of achieving composting throughout the community by 2025 or 2026.
Table to Farm is one of only 16 of its kind in the state, and is located on 4.5 acres east of Durango on County Road 236, with space to process up to 18,000 cubic yards of compost at any one time.
This year, Table to Farm got a shiny new Windrow Turner, purchased with a USDA Fertilizer Production Expansion Grant. The composting business has a public-private partnership with the City of Durango to offer composting services to interested residents and encourage them to recycle their organic food waste. (Courtesy of Table to Farm Composting)
The amount of compost processed has increased significantly, from piles of a few hundred cubic yards in 2017, Table to Farm’s first year in business, to 2,000 to 3,000 cubic yards of material in process today, spread across multiple 200-foot-long compost bins.
“This is thanks to a lot of food leftovers from customers (and donated), and beer mesh from Ska Brewing Co.,” she said.
The environmentally conscious business owners said they now have the capacity to process the material and sell compost to farmers, the Colorado Department of Transportation for highway projects and local businesses such as Durango Nursery, Botanical Concepts and Bayfield Gardens.
DiGiorgio said the compost will be bagged and can be sold to private customers and even backyard gardeners.
She said Table to Farm has also received financial support from several federal agencies, including being one of eight U.S. companies to receive the first round of funding from the Biden-Harris Administration's Fertilizer Production Expansion Program.
According to the USDA, the program “provides financial support for independent, American-made, innovative, sustainable and farmer-centered fertilizer production.”
She said the Biden-Harris administration supports a circular economy and is implementing a national strategy to reduce food loss and waste by increasing organic recycling, which can contribute to solving climate change.
Table to Farm Compost formed a public-private partnership with the City of Durango in 2021 to promote composting, with the goal of achieving city-wide composting by 2025 or 2026. (Courtesy of Table to Farm Compost)
“Table to Farm is a circular business that collects food waste from around the county, composts it and distributes it to farmers and nurseries within a 50-mile radius,” she said.
She also said the composting operation recycles resources and creates jobs in La Plata County. State agencies such as the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, the Department of Agriculture, the state Forest Service, the Department of Economic Development and International Trade and the U.S. Department of Agriculture all support the composting effort.
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