Reducing Food Waste: Steve Ardagh of Eagle Protect On How They Are Helping To Eliminate Food Waste

Higher Manufacturing Standards — the complete supply chain of the food handling process must be held to higher manufacturing standards and compliance, as demonstrated by the results of Eagle Protect’s proprietary and independent glove analysis, when testing other branded gloves.. Third-party testing of Eagle’s gloves ensures that chemical, pathogenic, and fungal migration does not contribute to food contamination and spoilage.

It has been estimated that each year, more than 100 billion pounds of food is wasted in the United States. That equates to more than $160 billion worth of food thrown away each year. At the same time, in many parts of the United States, there is a crisis caused by people having limited access to healthy & affordable food options. The waste of food is not only a waste of money and bad for the environment, but it is also making vulnerable populations even more vulnerable.

Authority Magazine started a new series called “How Restaurants, Grocery Stores, Supermarkets, Hospitality Companies and Food Companies Are Helping To Eliminate Food Waste.” In this interview series, we are talking to leaders and principals of Restaurants, Grocery Stores, Supermarkets, Hospitality Companies, Food Companies, and any business or nonprofit that is helping to eliminate food waste, about the initiatives they are taking to eliminate or reduce food waste.

As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Steve Ardagh, CEO of Eagle Protect, a global supplier of responsibly sourced disposable gloves and protective clothing (PPE).

Steve Ardagh, “The Glove Guy,” is the founder and CEO of Eagle Protect. After establishing Eagle Protect as an industry leader in New Zealand, he relocated with his family to the U.S. in January 2016 and launched Eagle Protect PBC, bringing with him Eagle’s values of providing products that are certified food safe, ethically sourced and environmentally better. Eagle is the only PPE supplier that is a Certified B Corporation and Steve and his team are passionate about making a difference in society, eliminating waste, and bettering the environment.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I founded Eagle Protect in New Zealand more than 15 years ago as a unique supplier of consistently high quality and safe products, with a focus on reducing customers environmental impact. Since then, the company has grown rapidly to supply 80% of the primary food processing industry in New Zealand with responsibly sourced disposable gloves and protective clothing. After successfully tackling the New Zealand food market, we relocated our team to California in January 2016, with the intent of bringing Eagle Protect’s advanced philosophy to the supply of disposable gloves to the U.S. food industry.

We founded the company on honesty and integrity, only sourcing our products from like-minded manufacturers. Having visited many glove manufacturing factories with poor hygiene and labor conditions, it’s only increased our desire to only work with factories who look after their workers, eliminate waste, contribute to their communities and reduce their overall environmental impact.

In 2012, Eagle Protect became a Certified B Corporation and is now the world’s only disposable glove specialist to do so. B Corps are businesses that meet and practice the highest standards of approved social and environmental performance, public transparency and legal accountability.

In addition to being a Certified B Corp, Eagle Protect is also committed to supply chain transparency, from the testing of glove raw material ingredients to the delivery of our products to our customer’s facilities. A crucial part of our supply chain is to visit and third-party audit manufacturers regularly to check manufacturing standards, quality controls, worker conditions and the environmental impact. We also independently audit our factory partners through Eagle’s own Supplier Code of Conduct, which measures labor conditions, environmental impact and quality control. Before partnering with any new suppliers, they must pass our stringent auditing process.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began at your company or organization?

I suppose it’s a good thing for me that not everyone wants to grow up to be the “Glove Guy.” I can’t even say that I had that dream growing up, or even into my early career. I was trained as an agronomist and moved into marketing roles and eventually ran my own marketing company in New Zealand. While owning that company, I had the opportunity to visit a glove factory in southeast Asia while working on a client project. The glove packing area was a large room with a concrete floor, a roof and no walls to speak of, which reeked of chlorine and acid. There were several women working around multiple tables packing 100 gloves into boxes, and one person’s sole job was to keep cockroaches and other pests from getting on the gloves before they got packed. It was jaw dropping stuff, and I recognized there was an opportunity to improve conditions for workers in such factories, as well as the quality and safety of the product and process. After starting Eagle Protect, I began taking my own gloves to the dentist, because I knew they came from our own high quality manufacturers!

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

At one point, we sourced a PPE clothing item we call a “smock” that looked very much like a rubbish bag with holes in it for the arms and head, intended for use in meat packing plants to protect the wearer’s clothing from water and other fluids. We cut the final hole for slipping the garment over the head in an oval shape. We were in a rush to get the product out the door, so we didn’t test it. We quickly learned that an oval shape, when pulled over the head, tears incredibly easily. We had half a million of these pieces that we’d manufactured in China and shipped to New Zealand, so we had to work quickly to educate our customers how to pull the clothing on very gently to prevent the tearing. Luckily, our customers were prepared to work with us! From then on, we made the holes circular with no tearing, and we always make sure to test new products first!

How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?

Very early on, I began to take a hard look at what I wanted out of business ownership. I decided to create a company and a culture where people shared my commitment and passion for improving our lives. And it was also important for us to find the right kind of employees, those who came to the job of their own volition, with their own reasons and ambition. Strictly from a leadership perspective, I also wanted to influence other companies to improve the lives of their workers in the same way. To date, we’ve truly become a customer-centric company, one that’s built on a foundation of purpose. From a leadership standpoint, I wanted our mission to be about saving the world, one glove at a time. Our workforce includes a culture with a strong set of core values and we speak to them daily, challenging ourselves and our staff to be guided by this altruism in all decisions.

To illustrate an example of how this top-down leadership strategy is working, the average tenure of our employees is 7.9 years. Since coming to the U.S. nearly six years ago, we have retained every significant customer account we’ve won here. I firmly believe that leadership plays a centralized role. If you look out for your team, they’ll look out for your customers. Our core beliefs in developing and maintaining an environmentally sustainable operation that strives to eliminate waste where we find it has led to the following examples, which include reductions of::

647,214 lbs. of reduced glove waste
91,561 lbs. of reduced packaging waste
43 MT reduced carbon emissions (CO2)
1,623,635 gallons of manufacturing water saved

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

My father was a surgeon who volunteered to go to the Vietnam War to help set up hospitals with the New Zealand Army Medical Corps. I learned from him hard work and dedication and service to a cause. He gave me the following “life lesson quote”: “If you aren’t into it, get out of it.” That taught me to appreciate the fact that life is too short to bark up the wrong tree. Do anything, but don’t waste your time. Because of this philosophy, I’ve loved building Eagle Protect into a successful business and watching the company improve over time. To me, there’s almost nothing more rewarding than leading a motivated and excited workforce that’s making a true impact on the world.

OK, thank you for all of that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. Let’s begin with a basic definition of terms so that all of us are on the same page. What exactly are we talking about when we refer to food waste?

Combining the separate terms of food loss and food waste, the World Food Programme estimates a full one-third of all food for human consumption is wasted — amounting to $1 trillion (USD) in global loss. Specifically, food waste is a term reserved for consumable nutrition that’s discarded. The U.S. data on food waste mirrors the global scale, with an estimated 31% loss at the retail and consumer level combined. This amounts to 133 billion pounds of food waste, at an estimated cost of $161 billion, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

Can you help articulate a few of the main causes of food waste?

Spoilage is one cause of food waste that occurs during every stage of the production and supply chain cycle. There is new evidence to suggest that a percentage of food spoilage could be traced back to disposable gloves. Viable food spoilage microbes have been found on single-use glove surfaces during independent testing of over 2,800 disposable glove samples, representing 26 branded food and medical-grade gloves. Dirty wash tank water and Putrid water sources, with a lack of overall manufacturing hygiene are direct contributors to this bioburden.

What are a few of the obstacles that companies and organizations face when it comes to distributing extra or excess food? What can be done to overcome those barriers?

Quite honestly, the single most disruptive obstacle for distributing extra or excess food is a lack of educational awareness on the topic. Like any other global threat where there is no awareness, such as how climate change was viewed decades ago, there can be no meaningful action taken. To overcome this barrier takes leadership by example and a collective will to follow through. As individuals, as companies, as countries, and as a one-world society, we have not yet taken meaningful steps to admit, address or mitigate the obstacles that prevent food loss and waste.

Can you describe a few of the ways that you or your organization are helping to reduce food waste?

It is safe to say that we at Eagle Protect are still naive enough to believe that one person, one company and one country can make a difference. Because it takes a commitment, we also believe that actions speak much louder than words. As the only food safety glove supplier designated as a Certified B Corp, we took the steps necessary to earn this classification to demonstrate to our employees — and ourselves — that having an altruistic and idealistic outlook is a logical first step. Again, leadership by example, simply because we’re committed to “using business as a force for good.” Here are a few ways Eagle Protect has made contributions to reduce food waste:

• Since 2016, Eagle Protect has invested a great deal of time, money, and resources to develop our proprietary and independent glove analysis to ensure Eagle gloves are consistently high quality and free from harmful pathogens and toxins. To establish a baseline for our gloves, we tested other major branded nitrile and vinyl glove samples for bioburden load, the results of which revealed viable food spoilage pathogens, as well as Food borne pathogens such as E Coli and Listeria, to be present on 25 different brands of tested gloves. Our food safety research partner, Barry Michaels of B. Michaels Group product safety consultants states, “Food safety managers are beginning to understand that cross-contamination has a considerable impact on food losses due to spoilage and short shelf-life, even before concerns for transmission of food pathogens to end-use consumers.” The evidence appears clear that food spoilage pathogens present on gloves can have a potential adverse economical effect on food companies.

Are there three things the community/society/politicians can do to help address the root of this problem?

1. Label Accuracy and Repurposing — providing consumers with better label accuracy for “sell by” and “use by” dates, as well as repurposing unused and unexpired food can easily be donated to food banks and pantries. Label accuracy can assist in making this process more efficient, as standards for “sell by” and “use by” dates are important for the non-profits who distribute food to those in need.
2. Meal Planning — as a society, we must continually approve meal plan efficiency. Buying too much, and using too little, are all too commonplace among families.
3. Higher Manufacturing Standards — the complete supply chain of the food handling process must be held to higher manufacturing standards and compliance, as demonstrated by the results of Eagle Protect’s proprietary and independent glove analysis, when testing other branded gloves.. Third-party testing of Eagle’s gloves ensures that chemical, pathogenic, and fungal migration does not contribute to food contamination and spoilage.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.

1. However long you think it will take — it will take longer. When we arrived in the US to “save the US one glove at a time,” we knew people would love our story and if we could get their attention, they would want to join our movement. The challenge has been and still is to get the attention of very busy people who have not thought about gloves to any depth. I am happy to say now after nearly 6 years in the US we are gaining momentum and getting very positive coverage of our unique approach.

2. However much you think it will cost it will be (way) more. To get attention in a busy world we need to invest in significant exposure at Trade Shows, Trade media and so on. Not surprising really when we are not just selling, but more educating our customers on how to be safer, more responsible and mindful of the follow on effects of glove choice.

3. There will be temptation to deviate from your values. During the pandemic glove supply was tight and prices increased at least four fold over a short period of time. We committed to our customers to keep them in business and not sell off our stock holding to just anyone. We currently supply avery large supermarket and during the pandemic they were desperate for all we could give them. At the same time another chain contacted us and offered double the price… To be honest there was never any consideration to sell and let our customer down — but I did momentarily dream of the new boat we could have bought and enjoyed over summer on Lake Tahoe!

4. Not everybody believes what you believe. We at Eagle are passionate about saving the world one glove at a time and safeguarding what matters most to our customers and their customers. Many in the glove industry in general have been complicit in the lowering of standards over the years of product and this has resulted in the notion that gloves will rip and fail. This is not necessary and it is disappointing when members of our industry continue to sell sub par gloves and persist with Vinyl PVC gloves that many countries have either banned or discontinued for food use due to chemical and other issues.

5. Be like Dory. No-one actually said that to me but many have said similar things. As Dory says in Finding Nemo — Keep on Swimming, Keep on Swimming… For us that means just keep going — we know our story is great, we know we are saving lives and both ends of the Supply Chain and we know we are slowly but surely changing the industry!

Are there other leaders or organizations who have done good work to address food waste? Can you tell us what they have done? What specifically impresses you about their work? Perhaps we can reach out to them to include them in this series.

There are many great examples of leaders within the B Corp community that have strived for and made significant change. Not just around Food Waste but in many ways. I think of the team at Method who changed an industry by offering safer and less toxic cleaning solutions — and started the People Against Dirty movement. Blair Kellison, CEO of B Corp Traditional Medicinals for many years, has made huge advances in reducing waste across the board for his company and provides a fantastic example of purpose led leadership.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

In my opinion, a meaningful movement that could bring a great deal of goodwill to the most amount of people is one that centers on the concerted effort to focus on environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG). Under our leadership, Eagle Protect has been classified as a Certified B Corporation. To earn this certification, your company must undergo a rigorous process to verify its commitment to social and environmental performance, public transparency and legal accountability — all in the effort to balance profit and purpose. We’re just one company, but imagine if every corporation had the drive and desire to achieve this level of accountability. The BCorp Certification embodies the mantra by which we run our company — we are always asking, “what more can we do for our customers, our team, our suppliers to make their lives more fun, easier and meaningful?”

Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)

An early hero of mine was Tom Peters when I read his book in the 80’s In Search of Excellence. He was talking about looking after your people way before it became a thought for most businesses. His book was an eye opener in the ways businesses could change the model and really use the full abilities of their staff.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

The following social media and blog platforms represent Eagle Protect’s online presence:

Website: www.eagleprotect.com

Blog Site: https://eagleprotect.medium.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/eagleprotectpbc/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theeaglegroup/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgDuwn-Cpg0YDVpPDIs7Mvw

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EagleProtectPBC/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/eagleprotectpbc

This was very meaningful, thank you so much, and we wish you only continued success.