With production at its new Burlington, Ontario, facility underway and a newly hired Chief Financial Officer, a United States expansion is next on the horizon for  Halifax’s Outcast Foods.

Founded by Darren Burke and TJ Galiardi in 2017, Outcast makes powdered food products from rejected produce in a process the company bills as “upcycling.” Current CEO Dan McKeen, a former telecom exec who worked for Bell in Nova Scotia and later Manitoba, was hired in November. Burke has gone on to found another food startup.

Outcast has also added another $1.5 million to its war chest thanks to an award from the federal government’s AgriInnovate program, which aims to fund the commercialization of agtech products. Burke said he plans to use the money to scale production in Burlington.

“We’re growing the upcycled world, which is tremendously helpful for the planet and for people,” he said in an interview.

"Upcycled food takes food that would otherwise not be consumed by people and moves it back into the retail space, which is efficient for the country, but it also keeps it from going in landfills, which causes greenhouse gases.”

Outcast has two product lines — a series of retail offerings that include protein powders and “super greens,” and commercial-scale food product ingredients that the company sells to other manufacturers.

The commercial production happens at Outcast’s two production facilities in Dartmouth and now Burlington, and the consumer products are prepared by several co-packers in the United States and Canada.

"There's things that they have, like the equipment that's used to … fill bags is a significant capital expenditure,” said McKeen. “And at this point, it makes more sense for us to have someone who already has those facilities and utilizes them … rather than buy (equipment) for ourselves where we wouldn't be using it very much.”

Once the Burlington facility, which currently has excess capacity, is operating closer to its maximum production, McKeen will also eye another plant in British Columbia, but he warned the timeline for the third production facility is not yet clear.

So far, Outcast’s consumer products are sold by Sobeys and a handful of independent stores in Canada, and McKeen said his team is working on closing distribution deals with several major American retailers. He declined to name the retailers because the agreements have not yet been finalized.

Last year, Outcast raised a $10 million funding round, half of which came from Arlene Dickinson’s District Ventures Capital. It was also awarded a business development incentive in the form of a Small Medium Enterprise Innovation Rebate by Nova Scotia Business Inc.

And now, Outcast’s staff numbers between 30 and 40 people, McKeen said, with its latest addition being CFO Perry Bevin. He was previously Senior Vice President Finance for Acadian Seaplants, which makes a suite of seaweed-based fertilizer and food products. He started at Outcast just over two weeks ago. His predecessor, Mark Duffy, was a consultant and “CFO for hire,” but Bevin’s position will be permanent.

“Perry had tremendously good qualifications because he had previously worked in the grocery business in the (Oshawa Group, now a Sobeys subsidiary),” said McKeen. “He has strong production credentials and experience, and also experience developing products — Acadian has been very successful.”