Creating a Greener Future with Gwenn Nolan

Becky Mollenkamp: Hello, Gwen. Thanks for joining me today.

Gwenn Nolan: Thanks for having me, Becky. I’m thrilled to be here.

Becky Mollenkamp: Me too. I have recently -ish started composting. Originally we were doing the outdoor bin thing and then this Christmas, last Christmas, my mom got me a loamy. So we have been doing food waste in addition to yard waste now and it’s like we’re trying our little bit to make a difference. Yeah. And so I’m really excited to learn more about how you got into composting, talking about why it’s important, all of that. Before we do, the first question I ask everyone though is to talk about your relationship with feminism. And it’s okay if you don’t really have much of a relationship or if you’re new to it or even if you have animosity about it.

Gwenn Nolan: Yeah, no, absolutely. It’s such an interesting question. And I don’t think it’s something we ask ourselves very often. The default is like, well, I’m a woman. Of course I’m a feminist. Or I’m not, and here’s why. I would say feminism is something I’ve always embodied by accident in the sense that I’ve always been very clear that there’s nothing I don’t believe a woman can do. So that’s sort of always been my default position. And I went to all girls school from K through 12. So I found, you know, as I spun out into the world that that’s not the world’s default position, but it had been so programmed inside of me that I, you know, when I encounter kind of like misogyny or just like ceilings or closed doors, I was like, huh, weird, you know, and it, and it sort of, It didn’t impact me because I came from this place where women were the leaders and the heroes for most of my formative years growing up. So I felt very comfortable embodying feminism from that perspective. And I still do to this day. I recognize that my brand of feminism is not that there’s anything wrong with the male species per se. But more that, you know, women can do whatever they set their minds to. It’s interesting also in our business, you know, obviously hauling waste is traditionally a male, you know, role or prescribed to a guy doing it. And literally our customers be like, well, when your guy comes, I’m like, well, it’s not going to be a gentleman who’s coming to deal with these containers, which is always a surprise to people. But you know the physicality of the work, you know at times we’re like They’re just stronger. They just are you know, they are physically built differently like I’m a strong woman and there are women who are as strong or stronger than certain men, but by and large They are usually a little taller and and stronger so like there are times really does help to have gentlemen on the team for certain types of So I guess my relationship with feminism is pretty healthy. I’m very comfortable identifying as a feminist in the sense that I believe women can absolutely do anything with what I’m doing.

Becky Mollenkamp: And your company is called Mother Compost. So it already brings in it’s evocative in that way around bringing in the idea of women, obviously also Mother Earth. But I’d love to know a little more about how you got to that name.

Gwenn Nolan: You know, it was, I had just had my third baby when I started on the adventure that has become Mother Compost. And at one point, my husband is 1000 % Irish. So I was toying with the idea of using the Gaelic maathir. I just kind of love the way that word rolls off the tongue or doesn’t, you know, it’s kind of mouthy. But as I was developing, you know, kind of what I thought the brand would be, you know, Branding 101 is like say the word you mean don’t try to be cute and clever and you know I was like the word I mean is mother.

Becky Mollenkamp: Is it from Mother Earth or is it, is there intended to be additional sort of meanings around it?

Gwenn Nolan: I think it was intended to be interpreted however the reader wanted. So not intentionally vague. I think it really was speaking to my experience as a mother at the time. The reason I started on this adventure was in large part because I had three small children and was dealing with a fair amount of anxiety about what the future was going to look like. And you know, my own ability to kind of look them in the face as they got older and be honest that we do know what’s happening to our natural world and environment. The iceberg warnings are in our hands and the idea that I would be able to say that I tried something. That was a big part of what kind of pushed me past my comfort zone saying like, listen, even if I fall on my face, at least they will have seen me try. And that was very important to me.

Becky Mollenkamp: It’s so important for our kids to see that. I want to talk about how this, the maybe ill thought out ill conceived piece of it in a minute, how you even ended up in this world. But what is your background then with sort of environmentalism or caring for the planet prior to having your children? I understand that feeling of, whoo, I have kids and I’m really starting to have anxiety about the future in ways that I didn’t when it was just my life sort of felt like it would end me. Before that though, is this something that’s always been a passion or was it really the parenting that opened your eyes and made you start to take notice?

Gwenn Nolan: So my background is not in environmental science. I actually worked in financial services before this and majored in PR and worked in PR in New York City for a period of time. I’d like to think I’ve always been somewhat ecologically inclined, you know, paying attention to what’s happening in the world, but I do think motherhood was a big wake -up call for me. What I imagine was like when they’re having their kid, when they’re my age and having their own family, what are they going to be looking at? What is the world going to look like in 20 and 30 years when they are having their children, which is just such a time where everything feels so fragile, right? So breakable. Because you look at this tiny little human that you’ve been handed who’s completely dependent on you and just everything feels, you know, delicate in a way that I don’t know that it does before you have kids or just go through some of those portals, right? It doesn’t have to be children, but the way that wakes you up to like the delicate balance of everything around us and our small piece of it. For me, it was also the amount of stuff that immediately came into my life upon the arrival of these children just was completely overwhelming. And then the amount we were consuming and then throwing away. So I really was just frustrated by that entire experience. And then particularly with food, which no one feels good about throwing away food, especially not with today’s grocery bills. You know, it is like, what the heck? So it was sort of that like having to look at consumerism and just the stuff that was invading my world and then looking at, okay, well, composting is an easy way to just reduce that quickly. And also deal with the fact I don’t want to be throwing out food, but my kids don’t eat everything and I’m stuck with it. So it was multi-layered.

Becky Mollenkamp: Were you composting and recycling prior to children and prior to starting this company?

Gwenn Nolan: I was not composting until about a year before starting the company. But I’ve always recycled. And it’s always been available in the areas where I’ve lived. So that’s mainly why. But yeah, so I started composting. And I just found it really hard, the backyard pile maintenance.

Becky Mollenkamp: So you were doing mostly yard composting to start, which I think I don’t know. Maybe you will definitely know more than me. But my thought is that’s probably how a lot of people venture into composting first is like, oh, all this yard waste. I’ve got leaves, I’ve got twigs, whatever. As I’m maintaining my yard, what do I do with it? And it’s really cumbersome and sometimes expensive to have it hauled away, depending on what your area, what their policies are. And so I feel like that’s an area where a lot of people start. They just start with a pile and then start to think, now how do I manage this? And then eventually move to food. So is that sort of your journey as well?

Gwenn Nolan: It actually wasn’t because in this area there are fairly robust yard waste recycling composting programs. So I pretty much was just like, I need a problem. I need help with this food. But I was a little frustrated by the boundaries of backyard composting in terms of what I could put out there. Crusts of peanut butter and jelly are not an ideal candidate for backyard composting. Or meat and high fat content things. So those restrictions felt like I wasn’t redirecting as much as I wanted to. And we’re in a climate that does require some delicacy. It requires in the winter to leave it alone a little bit, to manage it differently. But truly what was happening for me was I was working full time. I was pregnant with my third child. But I had two little kids. I have a husband, a home, family in the area, you know, just like doing all the things. I really was like, I don’t, I really want this to happen, but I don’t have time for this. And that was, you know, really where I landed on. I was like, I do think there are a lot of people who feel the way I do, but aren’t gardening, or don’t have a huge yard. So they’re not dealing with a lot of yard waste and stuff like that. And they just need this to be simple and easy. And then they would do it. And that was really my impetus behind the whole thing.

Becky Mollenkamp: And I think for some bonus content for subscribers of the newsletter, so if you’re not subscribed, find the link in the show notes, we will talk a little bit about that, the more how to part of composting for people like what you, because I think a lot of people have no idea what they can and cannot compost and all of that. So we’ll do that separately because it probably makes more sense as a separate conversation outside of the business part of what you’ve done. So if you want to know more about the just ins and outs of composting for yourself, subscribe to the newsletter, you’ll get back there. I wonder, did you know, and I know you have since learned the statistics around food waste and just how big of a problem that is environmentally for landfills and the environmental impacts of that. So when did you start to discover that and was that part of the push to do this company? And maybe you can share a little bit of what you’ve learned around those stats.

Gwenn Nolan: 100%. That was the wormhole that I fell down one day and I was just like, oh my gosh. I mean, this to me is the amount, yeah, so roughly 108 billion pounds of food wasted every year. In the US, we throw out 40 % of our food supply annually and that’s just the food that doesn’t account for the amount of fresh water, arable land energy in harvest and transport that is also wasted when we do that. And right, I mean, 22 % of what we throw out is food. So that makes food the single largest category of what we throw away. And there’s just an inherent insanity to that, especially in a country where we do have people who are hungry. Millions, tens of millions, I think it’s 40 million Americans grapple with food insecurity today. So But more to the point we also have this compounded problem of our soils right who have been we’ve been using synthetic fertilizers in Mass agricultural practices and they have degraded our soils to To a terrible point. So to me there was just inherent logic in this like food is not trash. It is a resource and we need to recycle this resource and get those nutrients back in the ground where we desperately need them. I think people will start to recognize there’s a human health component to this too. If the food we eat is deficient in nutrients, we are not giving our bodies the nutrients we need. We continue, you know, all these supplements and stuff because our food has been completely degraded over a relatively short period of time. So there’s movements popping up everywhere in terms of you know growing your own food and Urban egg, you know because the closer you are to where the food is grown the better it is for you they’re starting to find but To me that was a this is a logistical problem, right? We have this this resource here that’s being mismanaged because no one’s no one feels like dealing with it and we have a way to effectively recycle it. There’s just no one in the space. And so even though I don’t have an environmental sciences background or logistics, I can do. I’m a mom. I mean, that’s my life.

Becky Mollenkamp: There you go, that’s where that mother part of the name comes in. Exactly, thinking about the fact that you, as you mentioned, were in finance, PR, finance, very different worlds, and didn’t, while you recycled and eventually learned about composting and kind of are doing what a lot of us average folks maybe have gotten to. It’s not as if you were Greta Thunberg and like your whole life had been dedicated to the planet or environmentalism. So making that leap from the world of finance to starting a company that’s aim is to try and, you know, create a solution to a big problem here for the environment. Like that’s a, it’s a big and scary leap. And not, I think a lot of us have been down the wormhole that you went down, especially after having children. But even if not, as soon as you get into that environmental wormhole, many of us have gone down it. We start to make some changes individually. Often we get really consumed and it can almost shut you down because it’s such a big problem that it feels debilitating. And so very few of us are then thinking like, I’m going to start a composting company. And even if we did, even if we thought, well, composting is clearly important here, we should do more of it. I should start a company. I don’t think most of us would take that on because as you mentioned, it is, there’s logistics. There are all kinds of regulations. It’s a lot to get into. So what made you think, sure, I’ll take the leap from finance to trash.

Gwenn Nolan: Well that there’s again, there’s a lot of layers to that answer one I’m just gonna go ahead and blame part of it on Hormones, you know, so I was six months postpartum and I was on fire for this idea And it really it had been something that I sat with for almost a year before I like actually moved forward so it was not I Sort of was like maybe I’ll you know I didn’t run into it because I did. I was recognized and dealt with a lot of that. I’m not zero waste. I’m not the poster child for this. Am I the right person? But it just kept popping up in my brain, popping up in my psyche. Looking back a year later, I bought the domain name in July, and I didn’t establish the LLC until September. So it was hysterical to see me just like, continuing to do things even though I hadn’t fully admitted even to myself that I was moving forward with this idea But I was sort of putting the things in motion before I had cognitively committed And I didn’t quit my job so I kept my full -time job and worked for you know, almost two years doing both so I think You know that took a lot of the risk off the table it created sincere time constraints. But what I did, I asked 10 people in the area to compost. And I sent an email and was like, I’m looking. All I need to do is compost for a month, take a survey at the end, tell me what you think, and if you would pay for a service like this. And that felt low risk, right? Like there was no, if they were all like, I think this is a crazy idea, like you’ve lost your mind. I don’t know that it would have stopped me at that point, but I at least would have, you know, I think then I could have said to myself, all right, you tried, you know, you moved forward, you made some steps. And at the end of that process, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. And one customer who is still a customer today had three kids who love smoothies. And she was like, we were taking a trash out like two to three times a day because it couldn’t sit. So like, this is what I needed. And like, I hope you’re moving forward with this idea. I’m not going back. And that was it. You know, I was like, okay. So first it was one and then it was 15 and then it just kind of grew from there. And I used to wake up at 2 a .m. I had a little Ford Ranger. I would go out and pick up everything. I would get to the farm, tip it, come home, shower up, get the kids to wherever they needed to be and go to work. And I did that one day a week and then two days a week. And then pickup weeks really became a thing in our house because I was doing it three days in a row. And it got to the point where at one time I had to leave at like 9 .30 at night to fit it in, to do all of it. It would be like, pick -up week was busy, but then every other week I would have a break. But there was also something during that time about being alone in a truck. It was quiet. I had this time for my brain to spin out. I felt really passionate about what I was doing. So even though it didn’t make sense at the time, it was giving me something that I couldn’t articulate then and I still sort of can’t.

Becky Mollenkamp: There’s a lot inside of that story that I think are really is important for folks who maybe like you have something that’s been pulling at them, tugging at them. They can’t like it just gnaws away. First of all, I think when you have those things, those ideas that just won’t go away are usually a really good sign that there’s something there to explore. Right. But I think also I love that you shared that you continued working full time for two years because I think there’s so much messaging about going all in on ideas and if you really believe in it, you have to like be all in on it. And also some imposter syndrome I heard you talk about, like who am I to be doing this and doing it anyway and that you don’t have to go all in, you can baby step. So I just think there were so many great things in the way that you started this. And it sounds like also just those baby steps allowed you to begin to explore, like you said, in kind of a low threat way, the potential of this. And from what I understand, along that journey, you also realize there’s a really steep learning curve when you’re dealing with what is a pretty regulated industry. Trash, compost, waste is very regulated. It’s often something that’s left to government entities to deal with because of all of that. So can you tell us a little bit about that piece of it, the learning curve that you have experienced over time? How old is the company, by the way? 

Gwenn Nolan: 5 years old. 

Becky Mollenkamp: OK, so over the last five years, how what have you been learning?

Gwenn Nolan: It’s very interesting. So yes, trash and waste management is heavily regulated, but it’s way more regulated when you’re dealing with large trucks and or processing sites. Those things are incredibly heavily regulated. We are not dealing with trucks that are over CDL weight. And we’re composting is sort of this weird little industry that nobody knows what to do with. So it depends on the state that you’re in, how much regulation you’re facing. So in the state of Pennsylvania, we currently don’t require any sort of like special permit because we don’t meet these certain guidelines. It’s been hilarious because we have literally emailed to, you know, we’re in contact with the DEP and, and Penda just saying like, are we good? Like, do we need any additional registrations at this time? Here’s what we’ve got going on. Here’s the current makeup of our fleet, blah, blah, you know, and they’re like, no, you’re good. So we are on their radar and communicating with them, but it’s just sort of a little carved out right now. will say it’s scary. I am like a deep rule follower. I want to, you know, do everything by the book. So when the book is really being written in real time, you have to kind of develop your own policies and procedures and build them so that when we have equipment that triggers those types of, we’re just, we’re ready. We know exactly what we need to do and building those relationships so that we can have candid conversations and make sure that we’re following policies and procedures currently outlined by the state and local governments, which we are doing. But again, composting is regulated by the state. If you’re processing, then the township or municipality that you’re processing and manufacturing the compost in comes into play. That currently is not a piece of our business mix. So that does minimize the regulation that we face.

Becky Mollenkamp: You service both residential customers and business customers, correct? What’s the difference with those, I’m guessing business means restaurants primarily that are creating food waste or, and what is the difference in the business model kind of look like between those two clientele? 

Gwenn Nolan: On the residential side, it’s a five gallon bucket, relatively small, and it’s a fixed price for everyone in our residential marketplace. For a business customer, it is more of a customized solution based on their volume. So how many times we pick it up, what size container. It’s very similar to a trash contract for a commercial customer. I will say right now, restaurants aren’t a huge piece of the pie for us, I think for several reasons. But one being, restaurants, even coming out of COVID, have been laboring under so many, they’re just in such challenging environments in terms of the rising cost of food. Our marketing approach with restaurants is just like, we’re here if you’re interested. But we’ve really focused on faith -based organizations. So a lot of churches, synagogues have signed on because it’s part of their faith. Schools have been another kind of leader in the space, both universities and anywhere from preschools the K through 12 schools Because I am very passionate about making sure that children understand this I believe that composting will be required Everywhere within the next 20 years because of the amount of trash that we’re creating and particularly in the urban areas where there is just a concentration of trash and the disposal costs continue to rise so if education is about teaching kids for the future, then composting has a place there.

Becky Mollenkamp: As goes California so goes the nation it seems in a lot of things when it comes to regulation and as I was talking to some people about composting on social media a while back because of my own journey into doing that with my Lomi the number of people I heard in California saying that were kind of shocked at my Midwestern experience of food waste not being something that is even allowed to be collected let alone is it and we don’t even have composting, there’s yard waste pickup is the extent of what we have here and recycling that everyone locally pretty much believes doesn’t actually get recycled. And that’s kind of it. But in California, my understanding is there are requirements. And so I, it does seem like this is kind of what’s coming for all of us. And that’s a good thing. What does that mean for your business? 

Gwenn Nolan: When California does it, on the East Coast, they’re like, well, of course, California’s doing it. But New York’s also doing it. New York State and New York City. Maryland is also doing it. The District of Columbia is starting to do it. So it’s no longer, you know, California, it was California and Vermont. People were like, whatever, of course, of course those places are composting. But I think you’re starting to see rhough you know on the East Coast how New York goes goes the rest of the coast New York really set the tone so if New York has now mandated that anyone generating food waste over a ton Must compost if they’re within a certain square miles of a facility there are some carve -outs for that right now as they as they acclimate it, but That’s a pretty big deal and when you have East Coast companies located in New York, Pennsylvania, Jersey, and Maryland, if they have to do it in one state, they’re going to just start doing it in others just to streamline their operations. So it’s a wonderful opportunity for composters like Mother Compost to grow up in a market that is changing, that larger waste management companies just don’t feel like dealing with at this time. There’s some challenges to that as well. You’re scaling a business that’s incredibly labor and cost intensive when you get into equipment and CDL drivers, which can often are a piece of the puzzle. But no growth story is without its challenges, and composting has its own.

Becky Mollenkamp: Well, we talked about the ethical reasons for composting, you know, about first and foremost, just reducing waste in the landfill and the greenhouse gas emissions that that causes, which is very much related to what we see with climate change. But then also some of the things that you talked about ecologically of just creating better soil, reducing the amount of fertilizer we’re using, while also putting in good stuff into the soil. So ethically, I think people get

why composting is the way of the future and important. And when we talked before this interview, you had mentioned to financially, it’s an actual business and that it is financially something that has real potential and could be a way of the future. Can you talk a little bit about the financial side of things? Because I think when it comes to composting, it’s and recycling even those still feel like for a lot of people, especially I think a good portion of the Midwestern part of the US, but other places as well. It just feels more like a feel -good thing than something that, and for business owners to think about, like, yeah, we know we should, it’s the right thing to do, but why does it make financial sense as well?

Gwenn Nolan: Absolutely, and I will say a lot of the economical benefits are somewhat geographically based, right? So what our experience is here in southeastern Pennsylvania, it’s different than the experience if you’re in Erie. You can be in the same state and still be having a very different experience. So what you’re seeing on the East Coast, particularly in these urban areas, is that the rising costs of disposal are astronomical. So you’re looking at landfilling costs in the 100 to 150 per ton. So that is, I imagine, where you are, you may be in the 30 to 40 range. So just imagine what that does to any sort of operational budget of any municipality, government. If you don’t own the landfill, you’re in trouble. And at the same time, a lot of the landfills in this area are getting capped, which is part of why the costs are going up. There is a reduction in space. You’re seeing kind of this perfect storm of whereas composting right now is still relatively affordable in the anywhere from 55 to 75 dollar per ton range, right? So there’s some cost benefits and the ecological benefits. So you’re like, all right now you’re talking my language because food waste is the wet heavy stuff. So imagine we suck that out of the waste stream. We’re recycling it. We’re paying for that, but we’re paying a little less in terms of the processing costs. And it’s an environmentally friendly thing. So we can promote it. We can talk about it. We can have this great moment. But it’s also a cost saving measure to protect against what’s happening on the other side with our trash and disposal costs, which just continue to rise.

Becky Mollenkamp: I mean what did we think would happen after decades and decades of throwing trash into a pile? 

Gwenn Nolan: Yes, well, that’s the other conversation I have when there are people who will do this just because their belief system is such that they want to kind of be the change. But there are other people who are not there. And sometimes when I have those conversations, I’m like, listen, our current trash disposal methods are thus. We dig huge holes, bury all of it and then eventually cap it. And then the things stay there forever. So people, there are people who believe that landfills process trash and that is incorrect. They just hold it. I have been told that if you go to the bottom of a landfill, you can pull out a newspaper from the 60s and read it. So everything’s just in there forever. And then it has to be monitored for 30 years after being capped to make sure that none of the pollutants are going into the groundwater. And I think we all know that that’s not a perfect system either. And then the other option, which is actually becoming the preferred method in Philadelphia, is incineration. So we take everything to an incinerator where we light it on fire, polluting the air in that region, catastrophically in certain places, oftenly in an economically impoverished area, because most people of means do not want an incinerator near them, leading to increased cancer, asthma. The concurrent health issues are very severe. And then we take all that ash and we truck it to a landfill, because it still needs to be put in a waste management facility because it is toxic. So I think we can all agree that a third option, another option for our trash is warranted.

Becky Mollenkamp: Not real great options. And I love that you just brought in the fact that not only are these things happening, but they are happening in very unequitable ways. And I can speak to that right here in my neighborhood in St. Louis, where the land, local landfill is in an area that the runoff is going into a more economically depressed area where we are now seeing, I mean, the EPA has had to be here cleaning up this creek because how toxic it is. They’ve had to close the school because the creek was into the school. That water was causing problems for students here. And the amount of people around here who are showing cancer that is unexplainable, that doesn’t make sense, really no other way to explain it except for this landfill.  Okay, I want to before we go into like, I actually want to talk about your business model as well and the way you’re running your business. But one last question about the and this is still about your business, but about the process. The third option you’re talking about composting, some people may not actually even fully understand what that looks like and what it means. It’s not incineration. It’s not just burying it and forgetting it. It’s not some future problem to deal with, but it’s dealing with it in the moment. And I know you partner with a local farm. So explain how composting works. People collect their scraps in these five gallon buckets or bigger if it’s a business. You guys come and pick it up and then what happens?

Gwenn Nolan: I would put composting and recycling in the same bucket in the sense that composting is just food waste recycling. So in the way I’m speaking of it, it is taking this resource in our food and turning it into compost, which is a nutrient rich soil amendment that can be applied back to soil as an all natural fertilizer. Composting and compost are actually described to vary different processes, which can get confusing. But once we collect the materials, we take it to a farm, which is within 20 minutes of almost every one of our roots. They then combine what we collect, which is primarily the nitrogen -rich or green materials that come out of kitchens, and combine it with yard waste and the brown carbon materials, which they take from landscapers and have on the farm, and then they turn it into compost, which in a commercial setting is a process that takes anywhere from six months to a year to fully transform. However, it will be unrecognizable as food within about 48 hours. So it breaks down really quickly, but then to actually have a stable compost that can be applied back to the land takes a longer period of time because it needs to then the chemical reactions need to cease and then it needs to cure so that it’s not too strong to be applied back to the soils. So that’s, I think the characterization, we have started to discuss it more as food waste recycling because intuitively I think people are like, okay, I kind of get that. Whereas composting means compost is a soil. It’s an amendment. Composting means in the dictionary, it describes the process by which microorganisms break down these organic matters. And then other people, when they’re like, oh, I’m composting, right? Like, I’m composting with my low meat. What does that mean? That means I’m self -sorting organic waste from my home or business and putting it into another container instead of my trash. So there’s kind of like only one word to describe these very different processes. So food waste recycling is something that people intuitively are like, oh, OK, well, that does make sense. Wasting food is silly.

Becky Mollenkamp: When you start to explore composting, as I discovered, there are so many methods by which you can compost yard waste, brown matter, food waste, green matter, and then what you can and cannot put into each of those and all of it. It is, and then there’s all these methods. You can use worms, you can use a tumbler outside, you can do it inside with like a loamy, which is an entirely different kind of experience. So, yeah, there’s a lot there for people to learn, which is probably one of the reasons, too, why having someone else deal with it appeals to people, even those who have a yard. And I’m thinking, too, about what you said about having those 10 people try composting for a week and just tell you what they thought. And my guess is that experience, because speaking of what you’re saying about like we we carted off to a landfill, we carted off to burn it. It becomes the sort of out of sight, out of mind, future problem that someone else deals with. But when you actually ask people, hey, just for 10 days, collect your food waste in a bucket. For people to see, I have a feeling it’s a very eye opening experience for many people. Because when you just throw away like a few pits of a peach here and you know, the excess part of the green pepper you’re cutting away there into your trash can, you don’t see that it doesn’t feel like a lot generally, because most people are not just throwing out a whole bunch of bananas. They’re throwing out just the peel of one banana. But when you collect it for a week or two weeks, it has to be an eye -opening experience for people. So that seems like a really good marketing technique

Gwenn Nolan: I also think when there are these big problems that we are kind of willfully ignoring, right? I think everyone, I was once on a podcast where a woman, she was like, no, I rolled my can out and then I look at everyone else’s cans and then I think about how often they come and then I think about how many streets there are and then your heart starts to pound a little bit and you’re like, oh my God, this is too big, right? I can’t. So when we know that we’re ignoring something that perhaps like, you know, really bothers us, I think that also creates like cognitive dissonance in our bodies. And a lot of what the feedback was, was like, this made me feel good. You know, it made me feel like I was doing something. And a lot of the people I, had put in the focus group were moms, right? Were busy women trying to do things. I think there’s certain problems that activate all of us. And at times, I think waste is one that people can kind of get behind in general. And not everyone’s going to march, right? Not everyone’s going to take action in that way. But doing something every day at home that makes you feel empowered and that you’re creating change and momentum, I think helps people kind of deal with that anxiety in a way, and it made it approachable. And then what ends up happening is you start to be like, OK, this is great. What else is in my trash? Why is there so much packaging? Why is everything packed a million times? So I think composting gives people hope. It makes them feel empowered against just an enormous problem. And it does help kind of gently usher in an awakening to ways to consume less.

Becky Mollenkamp: And I feel like this is a good place to say it’s a both and problem, not an either or about individual versus systemic, because obviously individually we need to do all of these things. And I love that it sends people down that path of wanting to do more. But hopefully it also sends them down the path of wanting to advocate more for change at a much higher level, because, as you know, individuals can only do so much. And our waste is a mere fraction of what. the Amazons and the Hilton’s and all of the, you know, these giant organizations that have not only the packaging waste, but also their own food waste. And they’re far larger contributors to the problem, but at the individual level, we can still do things. And then hopefully that makes us want to be a part of advocating for those bigger changes that have to happen.

Gwenn Nolan: It’s a multi -layered problem. It’s a multi -layered solution. I will say residential waste is 40 % of the waste in this country. So as a sector, we are the largest.

Becky Mollenkamp: That is good to know. So I think it’s against a both-and. It’s important to know that we aren’t the only problem, but it’s also not enough because I do think sometimes when it feels like too huge, we can excuse ourselves by thinking, well, Amazon’s a bigger problem or whoever, right? These other companies are the bigger problem. And until they’re doing it, you know, taking care of things, it won’t matter anyway. What I do doesn’t matter. But what we do in this particular area anyway, really does matter. 

Gwenn Nolan: Yeah, and also it’s empowering, right? So if the entire residential, if every residential municipality and everyone composting, it would be a big deal. It would dramatically reduce the amount of trash that we create in this country. So yeah, I think it’s important. I agree though, it’s not necessarily we aren’t the problem, but we have to change all that we can.

Becky Mollenkamp: Yeah, it makes you feel like you’re doing something and you are doing it. That just feels like doing something. You are doing something. So it’s good to say I’m going to make this change in my home. OK, I want to talk about your business outside of just what you do, but the way you do it. So one of the things I thought was really interesting was talking about growth. We talked about what growth could look like for mother compost and what you want that to look like. And you talked about purposely thinking about wanting to keep it more regional, a smaller sort of business because you mentioned you wanted to have a more sustainable approach to your business growth and that you’re not just interested in growth for growth’s sake, because I would imagine it’s the kind of thing that you could scale and open places all over the country to replicate the model and all of that. Where do you fall on all of that with your approach to growth?

Gwenn Nolan: You spoke of regulation earlier, and that is one thing that in an industry that’s ever evolving, right, when you cross state lines and when you go into, like the model almost has to change fairly fundamentally. So right now I’m primarily focused on what we can do well in the area that we are currently like impacting. And that’s really the scaling that I’m most excited about. It isn’t as sexy as creating a franchise that’ll take over the world. And I’m not saying that that wouldn’t at some point be interesting, but there’s so much complexity that comes to it. And my fear is in chasing those big, big kind of like sea changes, it brings in investors who are not interested in making sure that the work is done the right way locally, right? It creates a different type of not energy, but you know what I mean? It’s really not the focus right now. The focus is being the provider of choice in the region that we are, making sure that we grow in a way that is authentic to how we started, making sure that we continue to take care of the people who have brought us this far, and investing in the things that create strong roots and structures. And then, you know, as the tree grows and the things branch out, I am open to different ideas, but I do not want to be distracted by those incredible stretches that would be required in a business like ours that is logistics, right? Like, we win when we get a neighbor to sign up. So our business is not such that like us opening in a new market, it’s a loss. Could be for a very long time, right? So that requires even more capital investment and more of a strain on the team. Whereas to me, measured organic growth and exploring new markets like commercial markets, processing and these things that are still very much in concert with our original mission makes a lot more sense.

Becky Mollenkamp: You mentioned investors, investment. When we talked before, you also talked about pitch competitions that you trying to like go down that route of funding or investing. And you said that they weren’t as receptive to your your business as others, because you’re talking about 10 to 15& profit margins, which, by the way, are very normal for small businesses. That is what a normal, healthy business can look like. Ten to 15% profit margins, maybe up to 20, but they were looking for like 50% plus because that’s often what they see as a model that they want to be a part of and that they can grow for, my guess is to sell so that they can make money. That traditional kind of model of like grow something sort of over hype, over promise, sell the potential of what that can be and then just sell and get out. That is not what you’re offering. And so it didn’t go like that hasn’t been necessarily the route for you. So what does funding look like? Because even if you’re not doing CDL licenses and big giant equipment, you still have to have a decent amount of equipment. You need to have a team to be able to do all of this. There’s no more you driving around at nine p .m. all night picking up stuff. So how are you doing with investing in funding?

Gwenn Nolan: It has been an odyssey. I will say the pitch competitions, and again, we’re a regional company, right? So there is like, if this is an investor based in California, like there’s just no touchstone for them. So I think people in the Delaware Valley area are receptive to it because they’re locally impacted by these issues. So it’s been an odyssey. The pitch competitions are great way though to be able to tell your story succinctly, to challenge yourself to figure out what your asks are, and to look at your business from an outsider’s perspective. What about this idea is exciting? So I will say that I’m gonna continue to challenge myself to enter things like that because I think it’s a great exercise. However, my expectations is I get it. But you never know when the right fit comes along. I also think my understanding of investment is still relatively new. This has been largely a privately funded by myself business. We do have a strategic investor from a larger composting organization based in Bethesda, Maryland, which has been a huge both from a financial perspective, but really from a best practices standpoint. That’s a company that was successfully taken over and scaled and has created a strong model for what it can look like to be a healthy regional player in the composting space and expanding into larger municipal contracts and larger commercial contracts and processing and things of that nature. And just building an incredible team, every person I ever interact with from the company, which is called Compost Crew, is tremendous. I have learned in a positive way how valuable that relationship is and how much the right investor can bring to the table and bring to your organization because there are things you can say to someone whose money is also on the line that you, that no one else really understands in the same way. And also someone who’s literally walked through what you’re trying to walk through. So I now understand and am even more kind of wary about bringing others onto the cat table, as it were, who don’t have either experience in exactly what we’re doing or just really, I don’t want to bring in anyone just because we need dollars. That is not the reason I want someone to invest in this company. So I’ve been lucky and I will continue to kind of monitor the investment situation. I’m not saying we won’t do a round of fundraising because at some point that’s going to be required to scale. But who we bring on to partner in growing this company is going to be as important to me as the dollar amount.

Becky Mollenkamp: I think that’s so important. I spoke with Catherine Montgomery last season, if anyone wants to listen to it, around VC funding and her experience of finding that right fit funder that wasn’t just how can I throw money at something to make money back, but how can we partner? How can I be a mentor to you? How can I be an actual partner in the growth of this company? Being involved, answering questions, helping you find connections and resources and really taking your time to think about that. I just want to highlight that for listeners because it’s so important because so much of what’s out there is like just how can I who’s going to give me the most money. And that’s not always what it takes. And I think it’s also important for people to hear like the majority of businesses that are not giant corporations are never going to be giant corporations. It is very normal and and good to run a business that becomes a regional player or even just a local player or has its little its piece of that pie as small as it may be and just does it really, really well. And yeah, you know, it makes money, but it doesn’t have to be about how can I like figure out how to be the next to be the Amazon of organic waste, right? Like maybe that’s not the goal and shouldn’t be. So thank you for sharing that.

Gwenn Nolan: That’s the default position of how are you going to take over the world? I think fundamentally it’s flawed and needs to change. I can’t tell if it’s those Instagram ads that are like, I’m making six figures after 60 days of doing this. And you’re like, what am I doing wrong? That create this loop that you need to be doing everything. You need to take over the world, and you need to be making millions. And I think this is something actually my investor once challenged me on a little bit, because I’m like, all right. You know, I’ve gotten to that point in my life where I used to be like, no one tell me what to do. And now I’m like, I would love it if you could just in explicit detail just tell me exactly what to do next. Don’t really want to figure this out? Thank you. And his advice was sort of the advice you didn’t want to hear, but I needed to hear. And he was like, what do you want? Because you can do any, you know, being like you said, being a strong local company is wonderful. It’s fine. And scaling over, you know, 10 years without funding is absolutely possible. It just takes longer, right? And it’s a grindier grind, but it can be done. That’s why they call it bootstrap. And it’s very possible. So his challenge when I was like, tell me exactly what to do. And he was like, I can’t because I’m not you. And this isn’t my company. It’s yours. And you need to make those decisions for yourself. Sometimes I jokingly call him Miyagi because I’m like waxing on and off. Like, just tell me what to do. But it is really teaching someone how to lead. So that’s been an ongoing journey. I would say people ask about what it’s been like to become an entrepreneur. And I always say, I never, what I didn’t anticipate was the amount of work I would have to do on myself as a human in order to lead from a place that I want to be leading.

Becky Mollenkamp: Go back to season one with Kelly Diels, because I talk about that in that episode, or she talks about in that episode, Kelly talks about how business is like the greatest personal development project we will ever do, right? And so true. And your mentor’s advice really speaks to my coach’s heart because all of that one size fits all advice that’s out there on how to make your, you know, seven or eight figures or whatever. That’s what worked for them, if it even worked for them or maybe one of their clients. But it is not universal. Nothing’s universal when it comes to running a business. And what matters the most is exactly that. What do you want this business to be? How do you want it to serve your life and not the other way around of you serving it? And that journey will look different for every person. So it’s lovely you’ve gotten to that place. I want to finish by asking you about your team. You mentioned your team and you cannot at the place you’re at now, do this alone, no more being up all night long, even the solace of the truck might’ve been nice, but that’s just not sustainable. So tell me a little bit about what your team looks like, like who do you have? I know you said you have more women than men, which might surprise people in the world of compost and the world of waste management. So tell me a little bit about the team, the composition of the team and what you’re learning about managing a team.

Gwenn Nolan: We have an amazing team and everyone who’s currently with us has really been called to the mission, but then I think stayed for the team. So during challenging months, the show up, the ability for people to be like, yeah, I can jump in, I can do this, I can do that. Everyone kind of brings their skillset to the table. And in an entrepreneurial startup environment that oftentimes requires, you’re like, you can do that? Awesome, we need help. So we still have you know, my my first employee Tiffany is still with us We just celebrated four years with my second employee And then our third employee Jacob just completed his third year So everyone who is currently at the company has driven for the company, which I think is really special and I don’t know that it can continue forever, right? There may be hires that we have to make who are not going to start as drivers, but I think it makes every system in our company stronger because we recognize, and I was just going through this with everyone yesterday, that having a driver -centered culture is really, really important to me. I understand how hard this job is, the physical toll. You have to be paying attention to crazy people on the road. You have to be physically lifting things. You have to be monitoring the weight of the truck and how you’re driving. All of these factors, right, you need to be on in a way that is not a desk job where you can kind of like show up however you show up that day, right? There’s an ask required. And our goal is to really build an organization and all of our support structures to aid the drivers in their jobs so that what they need to do is show up, fire up the truck, and go, right? So how do we minimize the asks of them? There are certain things that they have to do, like they have to check the truck and do these things before they head out. But how do we minimize the additional asks on them, recognizing that the work is hard and can be taxing? And also, I never want to get out of alignment with that. So because without drivers doing the work, we don’t have a company. Period. That is what we do here at Mother Compost. So I think it’s very easy for drivers to be kind of like the low man on the totem pole. And I’m vehemently against allowing that to happen to us from an organizational perspective. So working to build systems now to ensure that when there are people on the team that haven’t driven, everyone will be required to go out on a route. That will always be a thing. But that’s different than having to get up and do it day in and day out, multiple days in a row. How do we ensure that they bring the proper amount of respect to the drivers and a deep understanding of what they are doing?

Becky Mollenkamp: I’m assuming part of that is paying a living wage, but I know it’s more than that because you also mentioned in the beginning, it was sort of hiring based on people wanting a job and shifting that to hiring people because of the mission and that the change that you saw and what that looked like for turnover. So I’m assuming it’s part of its pay and just how you’re treating people. But some of it is about getting their buy in on the mission. Is that right?

Gwenn Nolan: When people are fired up by the work that we’re doing, they tend to be happier and stay longer when it’s a little bit more than a job. But yes, paying a living wage, especially for this very hard job, is incredibly important. And I hope to continue to invest back into our benefits and things that make us competitive for drivers, which is a very competitive job. But also so that people don’t necessarily have to be like, oh, I love this idea, but I can’t afford to take that job. That’s a future state that I could see happening and I want to avoid. So we’re going to continue to invest in our people because so far we’ve been very lucky. And I just think when you show up for this type of work, it shows up for you. And there are benefits beyond just doing a good job.

Becky Mollenkamp: Your own experience of driving in the beginning part of this business, does that necessarily inform why you’re so passionate about the people side of your business, of driver centered business?

Gwenn Nolan: Hell yeah, absolutely, yes, yeah, no. And I was in a truck yesterday, so none of us are that. I am no longer the scheduled driver on any of our routes. And I am usually the last person called up to active duty, but that has more to do with the fact that I have three kids, that I have to get out the door more often than not. We are not big enough now that at any given time someone’s not going to need to jump into the truck. Although again, we’re getting closer to that point. But it’s important. We have a huge new customer, and it’s been taxing on the team. So I went out yesterday just to live it, to see what it is, to understand it better so that I can speak to what our drivers are experiencing, communicate that back to the customer as needed. That’s important. I don’t ever want to hold myself back from the work either because of my ego.

Becky Mollenkamp: That’s why I love, even though I think, well, on the whole, Undercover Boss has a lot of issues. But one of the things I love about Undercover Boss, the TV show, if anyone’s ever seen it, is that it puts these people who have perhaps, whether it’s ego or just the course of doing business and have lost sight of or just don’t have time for every position there is, by putting them back into those quote unquote lowest level jobs, which again, I love that you said these are not low-level jobs, but putting them back into those like worker B roles and seeing like having to experience what it’s like to be that line worker, that person who’s out doing the hard work is so valuable and helping people get refocused back into running a human first business. Profits are important, but the humans that make this business go really matter. And I love that that’s a big part of your mission. Is there anything else before we move on to the last two questions? Just I’m going to ask you for a resource to share and then a nonprofit that you support. But anything else about your company I didn’t ask you that you’d want to make sure people know about how you’re approaching this business or what people might want to be thinking about composting. Again, we’ll talk about the nitty gritty stuff and the bonus.

Gwenn Nolan: I would ask everyone to take another look at composting in whatever fashion works for you. I think we spend a lot of time, if you are waking up to some of these issues, we should on ourselves a lot. I should be doing this. I should be doing this. And I want to release a lot of that energy, especially for women and moms and these, or women who are caretakers, because that’s almost all of us, right? Everyone is taking care of something and it’s a lot. It is a lot. So what I want is instead of you feeling like you’re failing because you’re not doing all of the things, pick one. Pick one thing you really care about and it does not need to be composting. I was having a conversation at a birthday party in Chicago. And she was like, I really feel like I should be doing it. And I was like, we can’t do it all. What’s the thing you really care about? She was like, gun violence. And I was like, are you doing something about that? She was like, yeah. I was like, cool. We need a good woman on that. So keep on, right? It doesn’t need, the hill I’m on does not need to be the hill you’re on. We have a plethora of issues happening in the world right now all at the same time and it’s completely overwhelming. My call to action, my ask, my challenge is just do something. It could be a petition, it does not need to be, you don’t need to start a company. But do something because we kind of need all hands on deck right now.

Becky Mollenkamp:  If your thing is composting, we’re going to do bonus content about how to approach this in your own home at that individual level. So subscribe to Feminist Founders Newsletter and you’ll find out about that. I want to close by asking you for a resource, a book or something that has been really helpful for you, either as a business owner or around composting, whatever makes sense.

Gwenn Nolan: My favorite book that I’m reading right now is a collection of poems by Mary Oliver, which I realize has nothing to do with businesses or business. But I think also giving ourselves permission to take breaks and breathe and remember how beautiful the world is around us is really important. When you’re dealing with heavy stuff and it’s easy to stay in productive mode all the time and to be like, yeah, crushing it to -do list, like check, check, check. So I bought a selective Mary Oliver poems, and I have just been enjoying the hell out of it.

Becky Mollenkamp: And is there an organization that you, your company support that’s doing good work in the world that we can donate to?

Gwenn Nolan: Philabundance is a food rescue organization based out of Philadelphia. There’s also an amazing company called Sharing Access. It was started by a college student at Drexel who have, it’s basically edible food rescue and donation. So, you know, composting is great, but the better thing would be for edible food to get in the hands of people who need it. So Philabundance is about doing that, but Sharing Access is an up -and -coming, growing food rescue organization that started in Philadelphia.

Becky Mollenkamp: I love learning about local organizations too, instead of the big ones that we know like these local ones where they’re on the ground in an area really making a meaningful difference in an area. Well, I will send a donation to one or both of those organizations and link to them in the show notes. Others who’ve listened and enjoyed this episode, I hope you’ll consider doing the same. And thank you so much for your time, Gwen. I really appreciate it.

Gwenn Nolan: No, it’s been a blast, Becky. Thank you so much.