Even before the entrepreneurial flame was lit in him, David Côté had experienced that thrill, that vague, gripping rumour that precedes any major mobilizing project. It was this emotion that had initiated the Crudessence project (restaurant chain and academy) and that of Rise Kombucha. It was also this shock that he felt before launching the Loop project. “I didn’t know I was an entrepreneur. When I left school, I was a hippie with social and environmental values. By traveling a lot, I had discovered a passion for living food and I wanted to share it with the world. After eight years at Crudessence, however, I felt that my mission was accomplished.”

That’s when he got a call from Frédéric Monette, VP of Operations at Courchesne Larose, a century-old fruit and vegetable distribution company. “He was looking for a solution for the 16 tons of fruit and vegetables the company throws away every day. He took the pallets down from the walls to show me what that amount really represents.”

That was all it took. With Julie Poitras-Saulnier, his girlfriend with whom he was looking for a promising project, and Frédéric, David threw himself body and soul into making cold-pressed juices from surplus or unloved products from the food industry.

Far from the image of the business leader in an office, David sat behind the wheel of the delivery truck to promote his circular economy project, meeting his future distributors one by one.

RAISING AWARENESS IN INDUSTRIES

Soon, the phone started ringing. Major grocery chains and big players in the food industry wanted to take action to reduce their waste. By diversifying its products (beer made from French toast, gin from imperfect potatoes, soap from used fryer oil), LOOP juice transformed into LOOP Mission.

"The goal is not really to make consumers aware of throwing away less food. Currently, industries are responsible for 85% of food waste in the world. So we want to show them that they can turn their net losses, which they bury in the management of their residual materials, into income. In other words, that it is more profitable to be sustainable than not to be." At Courchesne Lalonde, the cost of burying these losses was $200,000, he offers as an example.

After spending a month in Toronto and another in Vancouver to develop the Canadian market outside Quebec, the entrepreneurs now want to tackle the American market.

“In fact, I find that when the cause speaks to people, the vehicle moves forward on its own. All means are good for making yourself heard. I don’t see myself as an intense activist. For a project to succeed, you have to make sure that it is a solution at the base, that it doesn’t just serve to denounce a problem. It’s easy to point out what doesn’t work, but people are often not ready to take action if the solution isn’t clear.”

MEDIA PHONE

After food, food waste. Entrepreneurship has always been a way for David Côté to make himself heard. “In truth, it’s almost the only vehicle since money and businesses run the world. So we can change it through them.”

"I've been lucky in my projects," he adds, "but I'm a normal citizen with normal concerns. There's also a question of timing. Two or three years ago, we weren't talking about a circular economy. Today, the needs are glaring, we no longer have a choice but to look at our waste, because we're lacking resources."

With Loop Mission, he comes full circle by being as close as possible to his values. “Loop is the culmination of all my learning. There is no limit to what you can do. I could stop making juice tomorrow morning and still exist, because the mission is more important than the product. There are so many wasted resources that there will always be new ways to reuse them.”

Chain reaction

We asked David to name another activist entrepreneur he respects. Here's his answer: "Olivier Demers-Dubé and his company ÉAU (Écosystèmes Alimentaires Urbains) who created an agricultural system in a food desert situation in indigenous villages. His vertical aquaponic farms bring freshness where there is none and allow communities to learn to become more self-sufficient by growing food differently."