Spoiled food gets a second life as compost in ambitious Albuquerque recycling program

In Albuquerque’s South Valley, workers are transforming spoiled food into hundreds of pounds of life-giving compost.

Soilutions — New Mexico’s largest compost, soil and mulch manufacturer — has launched a major food waste recycling program at its 14-acre manufacturing site through a partnership with national organic recycling company Denali.

The program, the first of its kind in New Mexico, will increase food waste recycling in the state by around 600% this year through transforming roughly 250 tons, or 500,000 pounds, of spoiled and expired grocery food weekly into nutrient-rich compost that will revitalize New Mexico soil.

With food waste making up 24% of municipal solid waste across the U.S., according to a news release, this program will help divert spoiled food from local landfills and into local soil instead.

Soilutions and Denali finalized their partnership in November with a five-year agreement, Soilutions President Dawn Dewey told the Journal. She said the company soft-launched the program earlier this year and spent several months securing New Mexico Environment Department registrations as a result of the large volume of food waste it now processes.

With those registrations just recently secured, the company is looking to scale up to processing 400 tons of food waste per week by early 2026, Dewey said.

“This partnership is a powerful example of circular economy in motion,” James Kenney, Cabinet secretary of the New Mexico Environment Department, said in a statement.

The circular economy refers to an economic model that aims to maintain the use of materials for as long as possible to reduce waste and to turn “what was once a waste stream into a local asset,” Don Gambelin, Denali’s executive vice president of strategic initiatives, said in a statement.

Soilutions, founded by Jim and Karen Brooks in 1996, was acquired by Albuquerque natives and husband-and-wife duo Justin and Dawn Dewey in 2021. The Deweys, along with CEO Trishelle Kirk, have quadrupled the company’s revenue since then, Dawn Dewey said.

Just Sprinklers became the company’s exclusive bulk retailer in 2022, helping to grow the company’s $750,000 in annual revenues in 2021 to roughly $2.8 million in 2025, Dawn Dewey said. She’s expecting the company to do about $3.5 million next year.

The company is also partnered with local entities, including the ABQ BioPark Botanic Garden, Los Poblanos Farm and the ABQ Rose Garden.

The timing of the Denali partnership was “kismet,” Dawn Dewey said, because the company was right in the middle of reorganizing the manufacturing site for greater capacity. When the Deweys took over the company, the previous owners were utilizing about 60% of the property and leasing the rest.

“Last year, we kind of realized the demand was outpacing the supply in a huge way, and we knew if we wanted to keep growing, we needed to figure out how to make a lot more compost,” Dawn Dewey said.

The leaders reorganized the site to use the full 14 acres and implemented a new composting method, ultimately increasing production capacity from about 6,000 cubic yards of compost to 30,000 cubic yards per year. One cubic yard is equivalent to the back of a standard-size pickup truck, Dawn Dewey said.

“Then really quickly, we were like, ‘We’re gonna need more food,’” Dawn Dewey said. She said the company recycled food waste before the Denali partnership, but at a much smaller capacity.

“A few days later, I kid you not, Denali called us out of the blue and said, ‘Hey, we’re partnered with Walmart, Sam’s Club, Costco — we need somewhere to bring food waste. Can you take it?’ And we were like, ‘Absolutely!’” Dawn Dewey said.

Denali’s role in the program will be to pick up spoiled food from grocery stores across New Mexico and bring it to Soilutions each week. The stores pay Denali to collect the waste, and Denali pays entities like Soilutions to process it, Dawn Dewey explained.

The partnership also comes with an advanced depackaging machine, provided by Denali, that separates the food from its packaging.

“The president of the equipment manufacturer for the depackaging equipment basically compares it to hitting a frozen bag of peas with a baseball bat,” Soilutions Vice President Justin Dewey said. “It just splits the seam, the food can come out, the package is mostly intact and then it can be diverted to a separate dumpster and the food is recovered whole.”

The new, high-tech depackaging equipment is transforming the food recycling industry, Dawn Dewey said. Store employees typically have to separate the food from the packaging themselves in order to recycle it. Now, with the machine doing the work, the stores can save money on labor and food recycling can scale, Dawn Dewey said.

“We’re so fortunate to have (this machine) in Albuquerque,” Dawn Dewey said, adding Soilutions is now one of 44 Denali depackaging sites nationwide.

To keep up with the volume of food waste the company is processing, Soilutions will need more landscaping waste, which is part of the formula to create compost. The company is asking residents, landscapers and tree-trimming companies to bring the company their yard debris.

This includes branches eight feet or shorter, logs 18 inches or less in diameter, leaves and cactuses. The company cannot accept the root ball of a tree or loads with trash. Soilutions has established a drop-off station at its South Valley site at 9008 Bates SE, where the public can bring their yard debris for free.

“Instead of paying fees and waiting in long lines to dump your yard waste at a transfer station, bring it to Soilutions,” Dawn Dewey said. “It’s free, there are no lines and together we can keep these materials out of the landfills and restore New Mexico’s soils.”

The Soilutions president said New Mexico’s low transfer station fees are a challenge, making it so that the company has to compete with the transfer stations. Some states ban landscaping waste from going to landfills, or transfer station fees are closer to $50 per load instead of $5, which “drives (the) compost industry in those states,” Dawn Dewey said.

She said the company is working with the state and the city of Albuquerque to figure out how to get more organic waste to Soilutions.

The company will need even more landscaping waste than it needs now in the future, as Denali is working on establishing partnerships with New Mexico restaurants and schools to bring even more food waste to Soilutions.

“The sky’s the limit,” Dawn Dewey said. “It’s such an amazing business to be part of and the more we grow this business, the more we’re helping out (the) community and our environment.”