We have to find better, more efficient ways to create a circular economy.  This isn’t just about processing the easy stuff, the clean pre-consumer wastes that are wasted.  This is about truly valorizing and utilizing actual waste streams.  These wastes have no supply chain and are a management and infrastructure issue.  If we can use these wastes to create soil fertilizers and livestock feed, or biofuels, or alternatives to plastics, then we’ve actually contributed to creating an enduring circular economy.

“I just want to farm,” states Olympia Yarger, Founder and CEO of Goterra.  I started Goterra, because I was looking for an alternative for chicken feed that wouldn’t have the price volatility of grain.  Goterra is a decentralized landfill.   We build robots that get insects to manage food waste.  We have achieved the ability to create strains of flies that are more suited to different waste streams and conditions. 

We deliver modular infrastructure that can decentralize waste management opportunities.  With Goterra, you don’t have to build big infrastructure to successfully manage meaningful quantities of waste. That means we can improve and in some cases remove logistical challenges and we can be a solution for a wider variety of clients and regions.

Our bigger goal is to manage waste streams across the world with robotic insect farms.

Have you ever tried to farm flies? !  That’s an obstacle in its own right there! The hardest part about the beginning parts of a startup is funding.  Particularly when it comes to hardware startups, that need a space and a physical presence to be a thing that can be sold.

Entering a competition like FAC is not only fun because of the event, and the people you meet, but the intimate way you get to know your own company when you have to take the time to explain it to others.  FAC is incredibly well-organized and great people adds Yarger.

Yarger’s motto: You are not good enough to be disappointed – Dan John US. Wrestling Coach