Ag-tech start-up California Safe Soil says it obtained a licensing agreement with KDC Ag for the nationwide development and commercialization of CSS’s food waste conversion and fertilizer technology.

The technology enables almost any supermarket’s fresh food waste that can’t be donated to be recycled and returned to the soil as organic fertilizer, known by the brand name Harvest-to-Harvest (H2H).

Supermarket waste can be turned into crop fertilizer.Designed to mimic the human body’s digestive system, the technology uses heat, enzymes and mechanical action to create a nutrient-dense liquid fertilizer. This process is powered by a diet of fruits, meats, fish, deli and bakery residuals – a mixture that, once collected, is heated, ground and pumped with enzymes, breaking it into its constituent elements with no added water. That liquid is then pasteurized, stabilized and blended into a pathogen-free product.

This odorless process is able to recycle all the food waste it is fed in three hours, making it more efficient than most traditional composting techniques, the company says. It says that by not letting the food rot, its process fully preserves foods’ nutrients, turning scraps into liquid fertilizer. The solution can be run through most irrigation equipment, including drip lines.

To date, some 40 independent field trials of H2H have been conducted at commercial farms using more than 20 different types of crops. Farmers are able to use the product as both a sustainable solution during crop growth, and as a replacement for traditional, cost-intensive composting methods. CSS says the product helps improve soil health while reducing farmer’s nitrate and water consumption. Crop yields are said to increase by 15-25%.

To accumulate the food used to make H2H, CSS has contracts with more than 200 supermarkets. It recently opened its first commercial recycling facility in Sacramento, Calif.