Luna Yu is passionate about not wasting food. “I was taught at an early age by my grandparents never to waste food since it was throwing away the hard work of farmers and food producers,” says Yu, a recent graduate from the Master of Environmental Science program at U of T Scarborough.
“More than $1 trillion worth of food is wasted globally every year. What we’re able to do is take this waste and turn it into something of higher value.”
It’s no wonder that passion led Yu to team up with a talented group of scientists and engineers — many of whom are U of T students or alum — to form Genecis. The company uses recent advancements in biotechnology, microbial engineering and machine learning to take food destined for landfill and convert it into high quality, fully biodegradable plastics.
Read the full article, written by Don Campbell, here.
Learn more about Genecis here: https://genecis.co/
Read a Tech Crunch article about Genecis, March 2020, here: clickable link.
Update as of March 2021: Genecis has had tremendous success since graduating from The Hub in 2017. At that point, the company had just won an early-stage award in the RBC Prize for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and was just starting out. Since then, its journey has been highly impressive, including graduation from the impressive accelerator, Y Combinator. It now lists among its sponsors: MaRS, Green Chemistry & Commerce Council, Sodexo, Y Combinator, Green Centre Canada, Sustainable Technology Canada, and the Canadian government. Substantial sientific innovation has continued to evolve, and the company has proven very successful at attracting substantial investment. We at The Hub are very proud of having played a key part of Genecis' initial journey and success.