Top: Ben Parry, CEO of Compost Crew.

Compost Crew, a food scraps collection and recycling company based in Rockville, Maryland, announced the closing of an oversubscribed $5.5 million Series A investment to help propel growth of composting in the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area “and beyond.” The funding round was led by Lattice Impact Capital, a New York-based sustainable infrastructure fund that invests in companies, projects, and assets focused on transitioning the world to a more environmentally sustainable future. Compost Crew, founded in 2011, provides residential and commercial food scraps collection.

“With the rising customer demand we have witnessed over the past 18 months, the time was right to engage a group of investors who can make a meaningful contribution to our expansion,” notes Ben Parry, CEO of Compost Crew. “This investment will accelerate our mission to bring composting mainstream.” In 2021, Compost Crew reached 7,000 customers as the company continued its rapid growth in both the residential and commercial markets. It quadrupled the capacity of its Compost Outpost™ distributed composting facilities built in partnership with area farms, and has rolled out new offerings, including a paid food scraps drop-off subscription for residential customers.

Compost Outpost™ at One Acre Farm with inset of food scraps drop-off site at the Montgomery Farm Womens’ Community Market. Images courtesy of Compost Crew and City of Baltimore

“We are enthusiastic about the growth prospects for Compost Crew and for its important mission to eliminate food waste,” says Neal Parikh, Managing Partner of Lattice Impact Capital. “We expect the momentum behind food scrap recycling to accelerate in the D.C. region and other states.” Additional investors in this round of funding include: the Tower Companies, which has been a Compost Crew customer since 2015; K Street Capital; and several local executives and long-time Compost Crew customers. “As one of Compost Crew’s first commercial clients, we understand the benefits of composting,” explains Katie Rothenberg, Vice President of Sustainability with Tower Companies. “We hope to help Compost Crew motivate more area businesses to start composting, which will have a positive benefit for our local community.”

In addition to its Compost Outpost sites, Compost Crew takes collected food scraps to the Freestate Farms’ composting facility in Manassas (VA) and the Prince George’s County Organics Composting Facility in Upper Marlboro (MD). The first Compost Outpost™ was installed at One Acre Farm in Dickerson, Maryland. It had two containers with a total of four aerated bays. Over the past year, Compost Crew tripled the capacity of the One Acre Farm site, while developing new Compost Outposts at two locations that will begin operations in 2022. EcoCity Farms in Bladensburg (MD), one of the new sites, will open this spring. Aeration fans will be powered by solar panels installed on the roof of one of the containers.