The start-up Caeter­ra, now Easy To Com­post, was cre­at­ed by UTC alum­ni. It received the UTC Foun­da­tion Award for Sus­tain­able Inno­va­tion in the Hauts-de-France region at i‑Terra Day in June 2024.

Easy to Com­post aims to rev­o­lu­tionise food waste man­age­ment in busi­ness­es and com­mu­ni­ties. It offers an inno­v­a­tive solu­tion in the form of new-gen­er­a­tion com­post­ing fur­ni­ture that is styl­ish, prac­ti­cal and envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly. The aim is to make com­post­ing acces­si­ble and easy to use, even in urban areas and busi­ness­es, while active­ly con­tribut­ing to the eco­log­i­cal tran­si­tion. “This ini­tia­tive was the brain­child of Paul Marchi­sio and myself. Aware of the envi­ron­men­tal chal­lenges asso­ci­at­ed with bio-waste man­age­ment and the new reg­u­la­tions requir­ing it to be sort­ed at source, we want­ed to pro­vide a solu­tion that was eco­nom­i­cal, eco­log­i­cal and prac­ti­cal. Our goal is to enable busi­ness­es and local author­i­ties to eas­i­ly adapt to these new oblig­a­tions while recy­cling their waste in a vir­tu­ous man­ner,” explains Gau­ti­er Forger­it, CEO of the start-up. UTC has been a real cat­a­lyst for this entre­pre­neur­ial project. Thanks to the school’s dynam­ic ecosys­tem and its strong net­work of alum­ni, the young entre­pre­neurs were able to design and man­u­fac­ture their first pro­to­type. It was also through this net­work that they were able to meet their ear­ly-bird investors and recruit some high­ly skilled interns, who have con­tributed to a great extent to accel­er­at­ing the devel­op­ment of their solution.

Already numerous awards

“The UTC Foun­da­tion for Inno­va­tion plays a key role in pro­vid­ing us with both strate­gic sup­port and valu­able advice through its par­tic­i­pa­tion on our board. It sup­ports us in our inno­va­tion and growth efforts. We have also had the hon­our of win­ning sev­er­al awards that have strength­ened our cred­i­bil­i­ty: the Hode­fi Prize, the Label Ini­tia­tive Remar­quable, and the Trophée Repub­lik at the Nuit de la RSE. These dis­tinc­tions are a strong recog­ni­tion of the pos­i­tive impact of our project, now led by a team of 15 peo­ple.” A team struc­tured around var­i­ous key areas, includ­ing sales rep­re­sen­ta­tives respon­si­ble for devel­op­ing the cus­tomer port­fo­lio, an oper­a­tional team for imple­ment­ing and mon­i­tor­ing projects, work­ers spe­cial­is­ing in the man­u­fac­ture of com­post­ing fur­ni­ture and a com­mu­ni­ca­tions and mar­ket­ing depart­ment respon­si­ble for pro­mot­ing the Easy to Com­post solu­tion and strength­en­ing its mar­ket presence.

Contributing to a more circular economy

“We raised an ini­tial €600,000 in fund­ing. The UTC Foun­da­tion for Inno­va­tion has sup­port­ed our devel­op­ment by acquir­ing a stake in the com­pa­ny. These funds have enabled us to invest in the con­struc­tion of our own fac­to­ry, so that we can con­trol our pro­duc­tion and guar­an­tee the qual­i­ty of our equip­ment. They have also been used to strength­en our com­mer­cial devel­op­ment, with the aim to achieve our ambi­tious growth tar­gets for 2025 and prepar­ing for the launch of new products,é adds Gau­ti­er Forger­it. What’s next? To cap­ture a sig­nif­i­cant share of the small food waste man­age­ment mar­ket and become a key play­er in this sec­tor. “To attain this tar­get, we need to con­tin­ue to strength­en our sales force, to expand our net­work of part­ners and to con­tin­ue to invest in prod­uct inno­va­tion. Our ambi­tion is to become the mar­ket leader while con­tribut­ing to a more cir­cu­lar and envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly economy.”

KD