Smart Composters Are Heading For Sales, But Will Consumers Bite?
Earlier this month, Costco shoppers in select cities across California and Washington State may have encountered a product demo of something called Lomi. This white appliance, the size of a sewing machine, sat on a table decorated with a tablecloth, with boxes stacked high just behind it.
Pictures on the tablecloth indicated the machine’s purpose – maybe it was pressure cooker? An air fryer, perhaps? The only way to really see the machine in action was to ask for a demo from one of the glowing representatives or to squint and read the sign proclaiming “Lomi, The Smart Waste Composter, $449.99”.
Don’t get me wrong – the very presence of a composter at Costco designed to help food scraps avoid landfill is a good thing, which could be a sign that better food waste management is nearing mainstream acceptance. But I still had to ask myself: will consumers bite into a machine whose main job is to process food waste into something that can be used as fertilizer?
How Much is Home Composting?
The answer to that question may be how many people want to compost their food scraps but currently don’t have an easy way to do it or access to a curbside composting service.
About a quarter of US citizens aged 30 to 59 have a compost bin in their home. That figure drops to 14% for those over 60, and rises slightly to 32% for those under 30. One of the reasons for these low numbers is that only 27% of households in the US have access to curbside composting. Curbside pickup is important because, unless someone is a home gardener, they probably have little need for homemade compost. By offering a curbside composting van, local municipalities make diverting food waste as easy as recycling your cans and bottles or disposing of your trash.
However, with a home composter, anyone can compost food in their kitchen and sprinkle it on their garden or dump the compost into a patch of soil on the side of their yard. Some brands, such as Mill, offer a pick-up service for food scraps (turned into chicken feed) in packages that come in the mail.
But Will Consumers Bite?
All of this brings us back to the question of how many people would be willing to buy a home composter. Previous research shows that most consumers are open to using home composting services if they are readily available, but many are unwilling to pay more for a curbside pickup service. And even though people say they will compost if access is available, in reality, they don’t always.
However, I suspect these products are targeting a different type of consumer: the purposeful home composter. These include the home gardener who wants to make his own compost and the food waste warrior looking for a way to reduce his carbon footprint. For those who fit one or both of these descriptions, they may welcome Lomi or another smart home composter into their kitchen.
That is, if they can afford one. The Lomi is $449 for the basic option, with additional costs to purchase occasional compost pods and microorganisms that speed up the digestion process. The Vitamix FoodCycler FC 50 costs $349, plus a filter fee every few months. The Mill, whose creators prefer not to be called compost because it turns waste into animal feed (although we still classify it as a composter), charges a monthly subscription of $33 for the machine and a pickup service for the composted food grounds.
None of this is cheap, especially in a new product category like smart computers, which is probably why Lomi felt the need to start sending demo teams to the California and Washington markets to show people what these products are all about. When I went up to the Lomi table and asked them about the product, the demo leader was enthusiastic and let me know how to use it.
Ultimately, I think this market is going to be interesting to watch, in part because it’s so new. It will take time to educate consumers on the benefits of these products, and once they do, we will learn how many people are willing to pay for a machine to process their food scraps.
