R.City and Mill Team Up to Bring New Food-Recycling Service to the Phoenix Metro Area

Service connects residents to local farms with a new type of kitchen bin that prevents food waste while reducing chores and smells in the kitchen

PHOENIX, Nov. 15, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- R.City, a pioneering local farm in the Phoenix metro area, and Mill, the makers of an innovative in-home food-recycling technology, are teaming up to bring a new household food waste reduction service to the Phoenix metro area.

Starting today, Phoenix-area residents can sign up for the R.City x Mill service to receive a Mill kitchen bin—which eliminates the messy work of home composting by drying and grinding food scraps overnight so they don't smell or spoil—and access to the R.City pickup service and farm, where the kitchen scraps will be used to cultivate soil and grow fresh produce. The new offering combines Mill's innovative, easy-to-use technology with the community impact of local farming.

How the R.City x Mill Service works:

• Phoenix-area residents sign up at mill.com/rcity. The all-in service costs $35/month and includes the Mill kitchen bin, R.City pick-up service, unlimited odor filter refills, dedicated support, and free finished compost up to four times per year. Residents can add a local Farm Box delivery for an added fee.

• Customers add kitchen scraps to their Mill kitchen bin daily, which dries and grinds them overnight. Mill can handle all the food people don't eat, including bones, pits, meat, and dairy. The bin transforms kitchen scraps into Food Grounds: a dry, shelf-stable material that doesn't smell—with a consistency more like coffee grounds.

• Once the Mill bin fills up (which takes 3-4 weeks), R.City will pick up the dry grounds and use them on R.City farmland to grow fresh, seasonal produce—including several varieties of squash, okra, kale, eggplant, cucumbers, carrots, and microgreens—that customers can enjoy as part of a monthly Farm Box delivery.

• With a 30-day free trial, customers can find out if the service is a good fit, risk-free. R.City has been providing composting services and fresh, local produce across the Phoenix metro area for ten years.

The new service comes at a time when consumers and government leaders are becoming more aware of the devastating effects of sending food to landfills and clamoring for more solutions to address food waste. Each year, Arizona sends about 1.7 million tons of food to the landfill while a new report from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated that a whopping 58% of total methane emissions from landfills comes from wasted food. Wasted food is not only a major emissions driver, it's a waste of money: the average family of four spends $1,900 each year on food that ends up uneaten. More than 50 local government officials—including two from Arizona— signed onto a letter in late October calling on the EPA to offer more support to municipal governments to cut food waste in their communities.

The partnership between Mill and R.City also represents a new product offering from Mill as part of an expanded effort to enable local-loop pathways for kitchen scraps that support community farm partners like R.City. The initiative marks the first time people who subscribe to a private composting service—approximately 100,000 households across the United States—can participate in a program that combines the technology and design of the Mill kitchen bin with the community impact of local farming.

"When I set out to build R.City over ten years ago, my goal was to connect households with small local farms through a food waste collection service, and this new partnership with Mill makes it even easier for more people to get involved with almost no effort. I've been using the Mill kitchen bin myself and you have to try the bin to truly appreciate it—there is a foot pedal that opens just like a trash can, it smells good, and the bin takes weeks to fill up. This means fewer pickups, a better kitchen experience, and an easy, practical way to prevent food waste while giving back to our local community," said J.D. Hill, Founder of R.City. 

“We are proud to be at the forefront of creative public-private solutions to tackle the challenging problem of food waste in landfills. The City of Tacoma began collecting and recycling residential food waste in 2012—since then, diverting up to 1,000 tons per year of compostable food waste from landfills. With this first-of-its-kind-agreement with Mill, we are excited to be the first municipality in the country to pilot this innovative new approach to preventing food waste and to support residents who want a better kitchen experience and want to take practical action to address climate change at home,” said Lewis Griffith, City of Tacoma Solid Waste Division Manager.

"At Mill our mission is to keep food out of landfills in a way that's easy for people and good for our communities. The Mill kitchen bin eliminates the hard work of home composting while the full-loop service offers a non-landfill destination for kitchen scraps that gets food back to farms. We are expanding our work with government leaders and food waste collection providers across the country to offer more local pathways for Mill customers, and R.City's deep passion for local farming and food waste prevention made them a natural first partner for us," said Alyssa Pollack, Head of Business at Mill.

Mill was recently listed as one of TIME Magazine's Top Inventions of 2023 and the sole finalist for Fast Company's Design Company of the year.

About R.City

R.City was founded in 2013 with the mission of turning food waste back into farmland and connecting households with small local farms. The residential food waste that we collect is composted at our farm. We use the compost made on-farm to regenerate the soil on a 16.5 acre property in South Phoenix. Our circular business model creates opportunities for young and beginning farmers by paying all the typical overhead costs of a small farm like land, equipment, fuel, seed, fertilizer, refrigeration, and sales. So, farmers are able to farm with us at no cost besides labor. This makes farming a possibility for young and beginning farmers and much less risky because our farmer(s) do not have to go into debt or worry about selling their crops. As this model of food waste collection grows, we will acquire more land and create more opportunities for the next generation of farmers.

About Mill Industries Inc. ("Mill")

Mill makes it easy to prevent food waste at home with an innovative new kitchen experience and pathways that keep food out of landfills. Food isn't trash. Together, we can do better.

Mill was founded in 2020 by Matt Rogers and Harry Tannenbaum, who worked together at Nest, building the iconic Nest Learning Thermostat and other smart home products. The lessons they learned about encouraging new habits at home that are good for people and the planet were applied in creating Mill to change our perception of waste, starting in the kitchen.

Mill and Food Grounds are trademarks of Mill Industries Inc.