In this episode, Cory Connors sits down with Sydney Grier, Packaging Lead at Mill, to explore how the company is tackling one of the most overlooked environmental problems: household food waste. Sydney shares her journey from studying environmental management at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to becoming a packaging engineer, and how she ended up joining Mill — then operating in stealth mode as Chewy Labs. Together, Cory and Sydney discuss how Mill's food recycler works, why composting beats landfilling, the innovative all-paper packaging Sydney designed for a 60-pound device, and what the future holds for commercial expansion into places like Whole Foods.

Key Topics Discussed:

• Sydney's path from environmental management to packaging engineering at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
• How Mill originated from a desire to tackle food waste at the household level
• What Mill does: drying, grinding, and dehydrating food scraps to reduce volume by ~80%
• Challenges of composting access across the U.S. and how Mill fills the gap
• Mill's commercial expansion: launching nationwide in Whole Foods in 2027 at 10x home capacity
• Designing paper-based protective packaging for a 60-pound device — without styrofoam
• The value of involving a packaging engineer early in the product design cycle
• How Mill's bin is rated to withstand 200 g's of peak acceleration (equivalent to a car hitting a wall at 440 mph)
• Output options for Mill food grounds: garden spreading, local compost drop-offs, backyard chickens, or Mill's chicken feed send-back program

Resources Mentioned:

• Mill — food recycler for the home and commercial kitchens
• Whole Foods Market — Mill's first commercial partner (launching 2027)
• Mill's chicken feed program 

Contact:

• Mill
• LinkedIn: Sydney Grier 

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I'm here to help you make your packaging more sustainable! Reach out today and I'll get back to you asap. 

This podcast is an independent production and the podcast production is an original work of the author. All rights of ownership and reproduction are retained—copyright 2022.