The Compost Research & Education Foundation recently received a major grant from the nonprofit organization ReFED to help fund their ongoing efforts to “modernize the nation’s compost testing standards to strengthen compost quality, improve measurement methodologies, and help build greater trust and scalability across the composting industry.”
From the ReFED press release:
“. . . at the 2026 ReFED Food Waste Solutions Summit, ReFED announced the newest cohort of grantees selected through its Catalytic Grant Fund, a first-of-its-kind initiative designed to provide flexible, risk-tolerant capital to food waste solutions with the potential for outsized climate impact.
The latest open call, Minimizing Methane Through Food Waste Solutions, focused on supporting solutions that address methane emissions in two critical areas: advancing food recycling infrastructure to keep organic waste out of landfills and reducing methane emissions across beef and dairy supply chains through innovative feed and waste-to-value solutions.
Methane is responsible for roughly one-third of current global warming, and food waste is one of its largest and most overlooked drivers. In the United States, nearly 30% of food goes unsold or uneaten, making food waste the single largest material stream sent to landfills, where it generates an estimated 58% of landfill methane emissions. At the same time, methane from enteric fermentation and manure management represents one of the largest sources of agricultural emissions, particularly within the beef and dairy sectors. By investing in both food recycling infrastructure and innovations that reduce emissions across livestock supply chains, ReFED’s newest cohort is tackling methane at multiple points across the food system.”
Charles Duprey, the founder and president of Naturcycle LLC is also the Vice Chair of the Compost Research & Education Foundation and has spent the last five years on the Standards & Practices Committee overseeing the foundation’s work to modernize and update the Test Methods for the Examination of Composting and Compost (TMECC) standards for compost testing and evaluation. He contributed to the grant application that led to this award.
“The ReFED Catalytic Grant Fund gives TMECC the resources to create clear and comparable test methods to ensure that compost producers, laboratories, regulators, and the public are confident in the safety of compost products,” said Michele L. Francis, Ph.D., TMECC Associate Program Manager.
