No food waste is Yume’s Founder & CEO, Katy Barfield’s life mission

In this episode, Katy shares her vision of ending food waste systematically. She is already on the way there…

• Yume was founded in 2016 and is fast becoming a critical food rescue organisation
• Eye opening when farmers from overseas couldn’t get the high quality of food Australia wastes/throws away
• We can’t unsee and unhear the cries of the international farmers.
• Food rescue organisations (collectively) only save 2% of the total food wasted. There’s a long way to go!
• Katy wants to see food waste completely eradicated
• Proactive visibility was key to good response and effective food rescue - from suppliers, operators, and buyers
• Gaining access to and trust of the food industry continues to be a challenge
• FMCG is not prioritising wasted food as it si not seen as a favourable product by the industry
• Two-sided market places is a complex place
• Yume’s operational progression is dependant on an iterative process of collaborative development from both a process and technology perspective
• Yume focuses on the buyers’ journey
• Buyers journey unveiled a number of insights about the difficulty of interacting (technologically) with Yume.
• The openness to this feedback allowed Yume to improve
• Katy is not the ‘special sauce’ of Yume, it is the community
• Katy believes in ‘doing a lot of listening’, being ‘ready to be wrong’, and ‘don’t give up’
• Yume came to the market early and had the growing pains before they had a ‘seat at the table’
• Vision: once you plug into the Yume, no food will ever go to waste

Nature & Wellness of a Startup CEO

• We are all part of nature - we can build cities and buildings but we are never bigger than nature
• We need to plug into ourselves before the world
• Where the focus is the energy follows!
• Katy has to make important decisions and take ownership of their success or failure
• Katy advises everyone to reflect on how they being valued and if you don’t feel valued, move on.

Best way to get in touch with Yume’s website: www.Yumefood.com.au