Natasha Dhayagude, Co-Founder and CEO of Chinova Bioworks, a Fredericton-based company that uses mushrooms to reduce food waste, has had her work celebrated by FoodHack, a global network of food entrepreneurs and innovators.

Dhayagude is one of 80 women the group named, with her contribution being cited for reducing, repurposing or revitalising food waste. On its site, FoodHack said foodtech has many female leaders but only three percent of agri-food tech investment dollars go to female-founded companies.

Chinova has created an all natural, clean label preservative that ensures food safety and a longer shelf life without the health risks associated with artificial preservatives. Its technology uses chitosan in its natural preservative in such foods as juices. Chitosan is a compound traditionally sourced from the shells of crustaceans with a range of uses, most often associated with pharmaceutical or biotech industries.

The women named by FoodHack are working on everything from cell-based meats to microalgae drinks, upcycled beverages, functional foods and foodtech funding.

In 2019, Tanzina Huq, Co-Founder and CTO of Chinova received the Outstanding Entrepreneur award from Mitacs, a national organization that helps link researchers with corporations for R&D projects. Earlier, Mitacs named Huq one of the 150 leading researchers in Canada. Chinova Co-Founder and COO David Brown was named one of six recipients of the 2017 Governor General’s Innovation Awards.

The company was accepted into the first cohort of Terra, a Silicon Valley food and agtech accelerator, and attended IndieBio, an accelerator for life sciences startups in Ireland.