Mill's Amazon & Whole Foods Deal: AI Food Waste Bins

Mill, the innovative food waste startup co-founded by Nest veteran Matt Rogers, has officially secured a landmark deal with retail giants Amazon and Whole Foods. This partnership marks a significant expansion for Mill, moving beyond household solutions to deploy its advanced commercial food waste bins across Whole Foods grocery stores nationwide, starting in 2027. The move is poised to revolutionize how supermarkets manage waste, leveraging artificial intelligence to cut costs and enhance sustainability.

Transforming Grocery Waste Management

Under the terms of the agreement, Whole Foods will begin installing commercial-scale versions of Mill’s food waste bins in each of its grocery locations by 2027. These specialized bins are designed to grind and dehydrate organic waste, particularly from the produce department. This process not only significantly reduces costly landfill fees for Whole Foods but also converts waste into a valuable resource: feed for the company’s egg producers, thereby trimming operational overhead.

Beyond mere disposal, Mill’s bins will also collect crucial data, offering Whole Foods insights into what food is wasted and why. This data-driven approach aims to help the grocer further control costs and, as CEO Matt Rogers explained, “Ultimately, our goal is not just to make their waste operations more efficient, but also to move upstream so they actually waste less food.”

Strategic Expansion: From Households to Commercial Giants

While Mill initially gained traction by selling its innovative food waste bins to households a few years ago, co-founder and CEO Matt Rogers reveals that the expansion into commercial markets has always been part of the startup’s long-term vision. “This has been part of our plan since our Series A deck,” Rogers told TechCrunch. Drawing on the team’s expertise from developing the Nest thermostat, Mill’s devices are renowned for their user-friendly design, with early testers, including Rogers' own children, finding them a delight to use.

Rogers emphasized the strategic importance of starting with consumers: “Starting in consumer was very intentional because you build the proof points, you build the data, the brand, loyalty.” This approach proved instrumental, as many members of the Whole Foods team were already familiar with and using Mill’s products in their own homes when discussions between the two companies began.

The "Enterprise Sales Strategy"

This consumer-first approach evolved into a unique enterprise sales strategy. Rogers elaborated, “It’s actually kind of our enterprise sales strategy. We have conversations with senior leadership at our various ideal customers, and if they haven’t had Mill at home yet, we say, ‘Hey, try Mill at home, see what your family thinks.’ It is a surefire way of getting folks excited.” The startup initiated conversations with Whole Foods approximately a year ago, leading to trials of the consumer version in some stores. Feedback from these trials was crucial for Mill in refining its commercial model.

AI: The Deal Sealer for Waste Prevention

A pivotal factor in sealing the deal was Mill’s groundbreaking ability to identify potential food waste before it even occurs. Mill has developed an advanced AI system that utilizes a range of sensors to determine if food entering the bin should, in fact, still be on the shelf. This proactive capability is vital for grocers, as minimizing “shrink”—the industry term for sales lost due to waste or theft—can provide a significant competitive advantage in a highly competitive market.

Rogers highlighted the role of recent advancements in large language models (LLMs), noting that while training Nest Cameras to recognize people and packages required dozens of engineers and a “Google budget” over a year, Mill achieved superior results with fewer engineers and less time thanks to new LLMs. He affirmed, “AI is a huge enabler.”

Diversification and Future Growth

The integration of AI not only accelerated the development of Mill’s commercial offering but also allowed the company to diversify its customer base and revenue streams. Rogers emphasized the importance of this strategy, stating, “If you are a single channel, single customer business, you’re fragile.” He drew a parallel to his time at Apple during the iPod era, where the company’s reliance on a single product led to the urgent development of the iPhone. “Apple at the time was a single leg business. iPod was like 70% of company revenue. This was why we did the iPhone. Steve [Jobs] pushed us really hard on the iPhone because he was worried that folks like Motorola — who were working on smartphones at the time — would start to eat our lunch on the iPod business and that that would crush us. We needed to build another leg of the stool.”

True to this philosophy, Mill is already working on expanding its services to the municipal sector, further adding “legs to the stool and adding more diversity to the business,” as Rogers concluded.