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Phood LLC: Changing the Way College Cafeterias Pheed Their Students

Luc Dang says that he has had the “entrepreneurship bug” since he was a kid watching his mother, Donna Barnes, run The Willow Tree, her vintage clothing store in Chester. His latest endeavor, Phood LLC, is a little more advanced than his bus-stop pencil-selling operation that kicked off his passion for commerce in the 2nd grade.

“Phood specializes in food waste tracking and analytics to provide food service professionals with actionable insights to help reduce food waste volume by up to 50 percent and cut food costs between one and five percent,” said Dang, a 2011 graduate of Valley Regional High School.

The company, which Dang co-founded, has been established for a little more than a year. Five individuals, all under the age of 25, including Clay Arnold of Ivoryton, run the start-up. Phood is currently partnered with universities and colleges in Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Phood’s food waste tracking uses software that combines different aspects of food production such as recipes, menus, and consumption predictions to help commercial foodservice operations track food that’s prepared but never makes it to the consumer.

The information is all located in a centralized database.

“Using proprietary algorithms, we trend that data into simple reports to provide actionable insights on top wasted items, loss reasons, staff behavior, and more,” Dang said.

Dang’s idea for Phood came after working as a busser and waiter at restaurants throughout high school and college. He says that when he discovered the National Resource Defense Council’s statistic that 40 percent of food in the United States is wasted, he knew he had to take action.

“I came up with Phood while at the University of Connecticut,” said Dang, who graduated from UConn in 2015. “With a background in marketing and economics, I reached out to the [UConn] President’s Office to conduct a food waste study trialing this concept with one of their eight kitchens on campus. It was through the help of my co-founders Mike Morton and Nick Kruczek that we were able to work with the University of Connecticut’s Department of Dining Services to help reach food volume reductions of up to 30 percent in our first year of implementation.”

Morton and Kruczek both started working with Dang on Phood while still enrolled at UConn.

Dennis Pierce, director of Dining Services at UConn, says that Phood LLC is one of three waste programs on UConn’s campus.

“When Luc was a student here, we allowed him to initiate his idea in one of our dining facilities. It was an opportunity for him to build his system in a real time environment,” Pierce said. “His system brings awareness to food waste and that allows us to control our waste.”

Arnold joined Dang and his team following his graduation from Endicott College last spring.

“I came to Luc with the idea of expanding the business’s sustainability approach,” Arnold said. “The issue of food waste is one that has immense adverse effects on the environment. Through tools like Phood that result in the reduction of food waste, these effects can be mitigated significantly.”

Arnold’s perspective added a new dynamic to the company.

“I wanted to help brand Phood not only as a tool that could save people money, but one that could seriously help reduce their carbon footprint,” said Arnold. “Luc thought this was a good idea, and decided to bring me on to work on quantifying our clients’ environmental impact savings (i.e. reduced carbon emissions, water usage, etc.), in addition to various other sales and marketing projects.”

This year, the company plans to expand to Massachusetts, according to Dang.

Though the team started its agreements with colleges, Dang and company are looking toward a larger-scale future.

“Food waste is a ubiquitous issue that exists in more than just collegiate foodservice operations,” Dang said. “Our mission is to establish a presence with colleges and universities before offering our solutions to healthcare facilities and hospitals, military operations, buffets and chain restaurants—to foodservice operations of all sizes.”

To learn more about Phood LLC, visit phoodsolutions.com.