Introducing our 2021 Earth Award Winner: Kayli Dale

After the reviewing of several talented, ambitious and empowering female candidates for our Earth Award this year we came to a decision. Meet Kayli Dale - the winner of our 2021 Terrera Earth Award! Kayli is the founder of A Friendlier Company, a zero-waste initiative to eliminate the use of single-use plastics in food packaging.

Here's her story:

How it All Began

After graduating from Chemical Engineering last spring from the University of Waterloo I started my venture, A Friendlier Company, with one purpose: to be part of the solution to pollution. During my undergrad, I completed six co-op terms, many of which were in manufacturing and chemical processing. While I gained incredible work experience in these positions, I was
shocked by the amount of waste and pollution being generated in industry. In my third year of university, I spent a term studying in Lund, Sweden. I spent the term travelling across Europe, and was inspired by the circular economies they had there. My passion for sustainability grew as I travelled and saw the way other countries minimized waste and resource depletion. I became determined to bring the concepts I’d learned in Sweden back to Canada and create a circular economy to reduce pollution. I started A Friendlier Company with one of my classmates, Jacqueline Hutchings, to tackle waste we saw in our everyday lives; food packaging waste.

About The Company 

A Friendlier Company launched our reusable food packaging system in October 2020, and we’ve been growing ever since. We developed a QR-code tracking system that is integrated with our mobile app to track the reusable packaging and make our system as convenient and accessible as possible for all consumers. We provide food service businesses with reusable packaging, then collect, wash and sanitize, and redistribute it to create a closed-loop system. By keeping products in circulation, we not only reduce waste, but we reduce resource consumption, energy for manufacturing and end-of-life, and energy for transportation.

Running an Eco-Startup Amidst a Pandemic

We’ve reused over 8000 containers so far, eliminating 880 lbs of waste and 3085 lbs of carbon dioxide emissions. It has been difficult to get funding for our project, as we launched right at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic when most funding was given to existing businesses affected by lockdowns. We have worked incredibly hard to achieve what we have so far. We’ve received $5000 from Seeding Our Food Future in Guelph, however that is the extent of our funding. Up until this point, we have only been offering reusable takeout containers.

How the $1000 Terrera Earth Award Grant will further A Friendlier Company

The $1000 grant would allow us to start reusing coffee cups as well. We are looking to start a pilot project with reusable cups in September 2021. The grant would go towards our initial inventory of cups, and marketing/educational material for consumers about the system.

The team at Terrera were deeply inspired by Kayli’s passion and empowering initiative behind A Friendlier Company and were moved by how she fearlessly transitioned from student to entrepreneur. We’d like to congratulate her for her win and we wish her continuous growth in her incredible business!
To check out more about A Friendlier Company their partnering restaurants see their website here: https://www.afriendliercompany.ca/ 
Follow A Friendlier Company on social media!

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