B2B marketplace for excess food produce wins $30,000 Kickstarter Challenge

The Melbourne-based woman founder of digital B2B marketplace Platform Zero, which allows supermarkets to on-sell surplus or rejected produce, diverting tonnes of daily food waste from landfills, has won $30,000 in equity-free funding as the winner of the 2023 Kickstarter Challenge.

An initiative of the Accelerator for Enterprising Women, the Kickstarter Challenge aims to support Australian women to create self-made career paths, empower them to pursue entrepreneurship as a viable career choice, and give them the tools they need to run their businesses.

Now involved with 800 registered businesses across Victoria, South Australia, as well as nationally, and currently in talks with four large supermarket groups, Alexandra Cannizzaro’s digital marketplace Platform Zero connects growers with retailers, retailers to wholesalers, and wholesalers to the Australian community.

Platform Zero was built by a family of fruit and vegetable farmers and wholesalers that have been serving Australia for 70 years, however, Cannizzaro, who is third-generation, decided four years ago to turn it into a viable business and divert food waste from landfills.

She created her product after establishing a chain of juice shops in Adelaide that led her into fruit and vegetable distribution, where she realised the scale of the food waste problem and the environmental impacts.

Cannizzaro said she was thrilled to be named the Kickstarter Challenge winner, confirming she would use the prize money to employ sales representatives to grow her business.

“I’m so thrilled. This program is just giving my business so much credit and credibility. The money alone is just a huge help for my business and leverages me in many ways now,” she said.

“At the moment it’s just me doing everything. So the more hands on deck, the more businesses on board, and the more stock we can move to keep reducing food waste.”

As well as diverting tonnes of food from landfills, the platform provides discounted produce to restaurants, cafes and small businesses and better links supermarkets to food charities.

Platform Zero is also ensuring farmers get paid, rather than see the fruits of their labour thrown away, by creating an interconnecting eco-system.

Cannizzaro said Platform Zero is not just tackling climate change, it’s tackling rising prices at the same time.

“What Platform Zero does is we help supermarkets reduce their waste within the supermarkets and their whole entire supply chain, so we don’t just reduce waste within supermarkets,” she said.

“It can be from your local fruit and veg door to your local butcher. 

“If you’ve got excess stock instead of throwing it into the bin, you chuck it up on our platform.”

L-R: Emcee and Network 10 political editor Ashleigh Raper, Minister Tanya Plibersek, winner Alexandra Cannizzaro (in black), Liz Lea (blue dress), Desiree D’Cruz (lemon suit), Esther Oh (pink jacket), Danielle Arrebola. Source: Supplied

The four Kickstarter Challenge runner-ups who will each take home $7,500 to put toward their startups are Desiree D’Cruz, the founder of Acegirl which develops soft, wearable breast pumps, Esther Oh, the founder of Agili8 providing virtual healthcare using XRAI vision, Liz Lea, the founder of Showgo, an audio description service and app for theatre, dance, museums and film and Danielle Arrebola, the founder of Employi a mobile dashboard to recognise employees and boost morale.

Accelerator for Enterprising Women’s spokesperson Miriam Rizvi said it is a sobering fact that only a third of Australian startups are female-led and women receive less than a quarter of all private seed capital investment in Australia.

“Initiatives like this Kickstarter Challenge, and the Accelerator for Enterprising Women support and empower female entrepreneurs to shatter glass ceilings, solve society’s problems with smart solutions and embrace their potential as successful business owners,” she said.