Monthly Archives: March 2010

The Red Wiggler on a compost bin, in case you were wondering what to look for. (image source: www.en.wikipedia.org)

Once upon a time, a 19-year-old Princeton student had a crazy idea: why not harvest worm poop, liquefy it, and package it in re-used soda bottles?

In 2001, while visiting some friends in Montreal over the Fall Break of his freshman year, Tom Szaky watched as his friends fed scraps of food to red wiggler worms in a composting bin. And suddenly it hit him – feeding organic waste to worms and using the results as fertilizer would be a perfect business model to submit to the Princeton Business Plan Contest.

And the rest is history. Szaky placed fifth in the contest, but he didn’t stop there. Soon he had emptied his savings account to invest in a worm gin, and he and his friend Jon Beyer were spending their days shoveling rotting food waste from the dining halls to deliver to the wigglers. Meanwhile, Szaky was camping out on the floor of a friend’s dorm room and eating what he could find in his dining hall adventures. His venture was saved by the contributions of Suman Sinha, a venture capitalist who saw promise in Szaky and his worm gin, and 20 Nassau St. became, um, home to worms and rotting food. Or at least to their administrative affairs. (Did they tell you that when you signed the lease, Ma Chérie Boutique?)