Denali and Walmart roll-out organic recycling and reuse technology across thousands of Stateside stores

Denali, a US-based recycler of organic materials, has announced a collaboration with Walmart to roll-out depackaging services that can help improve the food waste recycling process at more than 1,000 Walmart and Sam's Club locations nationwide.

The technology aims to help drive operational efficiencies for Walmart enterprise associates, and based on early testing, has increased the volume of potentially reusable organic content recovered from participating Walmart and Sam's Club locations by more than 60% and reduced their compactor trash by an estimated 12%.

As of today, the programme has launched in over 1,400 Walmart and Sam's Club locations in more than 16 markets across the country including Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Indianapolis, Phoenix and cities across New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut – with roll-out to continue nationwide into 2025.

The depackaging technology and processes separate food from its packaging materials like plastic and cardboard, producing a cleaner stream of organic material that can be turned into animal feed, compost or converted into energy with anaerobic digesters.

The depackaging services help avoid the process of manually separating food from its packaging – making it easier to recycle and reuse food waste while freeing up time for retailers. Walmart is one of the first retailers to leverage the newly implemented depackaging capabilities at scale.

“As a people led, tech powered retailer, Walmart is focused on driving innovations that build operational efficiency, improve store associates’ experience, and help reduce waste," says RJ Zanes, Walmart's Vice President of Facility Services.

“Denali’s depackaging technology can help enable us to turn millions of pounds of potential food waste into useful products each year while allowing our associates to devote more time serving our customers.”

Denali currently provides depackaging services to thousands of grocers, food manufacturers, distributors and municipalities nationwide by collecting food waste from partners and recycling into valuable products like compost, organic fertiliser, animal feed and clean energy, keeping this resource out of landfills.

Its network of depackaging facilities can separate up to 97% of all trash from organic food waste, including expired food products, recalled items, food scraps and spoiled deli, bakery and produce. Additionally, the depackaging services can process other food categories including animal products, dry and liquid goods.

“Our depackaging technology is revolutionising the way in which food manufacturers, distributors, retailers - and the cities in which they operate - can reduce food waste,” says Ilia Kostov, Denali’s Chief Revenue Officer.

“We are proud to work with the leading retailer - Walmart and Sam’s Club – to help reduce food waste at scale while simultaneously enabling the circular economy.”

After piloting the programme in multiple markets over several years, Denali began its nationwide depackaging services roll-out in 2023 in Phoenix, where the City of Phoenix diverted 2,000 tons of food waste generated from events and activities related to the Big Game.

Since then, Denali has supported the City of Phoenix and local retailers to process and reduce the amount of food waste reaching landfills.

2024 RTIH INNOVATION AWARDS

Green retail is a key focus area for the sixth edition of the RTIH Innovation Awards, which is now open for entries.

The awards, sponsored by CADS, 3D Cloud, and Retail Technology Show 2025, celebrate global tech

innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.

Key 2024 dates

Friday, 25th October: Award entry deadline 

Tuesday, 29th October: 2024 shortlist revealed

30th October-6th November: Judging days

Thursday, 21st November: Winners announced at the 2024 RTIH Innovation Awards ceremony, to be held at RIBA’s 66 Portland Place HQ in Central London.