India wastes as much as 74 million tonnes of food every year, amounting to 22% of its foodgrain production, according to data from the United Nations Environment Programme 2021. Much of this food, while still edible, ends up in landfills or compost pits.
Meanwhile, the country’s dairy and poultry industries are grappling with rising costs for raw materials like maize and soya. What if one problem could help solve the other?
That thought sparked the creation of , a Delhi startup founded in 2018 by Saket Dave, a chemical engineer who was later joined by Krishnan Kasturirangan, his former colleague at cloud communications firm Knowlarity.
Today, WasteLink turns surplus food into feed ingredients for cattle, poultry, and aquaculture.
“While we use the word food waste, actually, it’s more food surplus,” Dave says. “We use food that is good enough for humans, but could not reach them; we prevent it from becoming waste.”
Dave’s early work in recycling and zero-waste projects showed him how much edible food was being wasted. Later, while working at Knowlarity, Dave and Kasturirangan often spoke about the gap between surplus food going to waste and the rising cost of animal feed.
In 2018, Dave and Krishnan decided to turn that gap into an opportunity, laying the foundation for WasteLink.
From platform idea to product business
When WasteLink began, the idea was to be a platform for all kinds of waste, such as plastics, apparel, electronics, and food. But food was different.
“Plastics recycling had started, and electronics were a huge industry. Food mostly ended up as compost or biogas,” Dave says. Seeing the dairy sector’s need for cheaper feed, the team decided to shift to upcycling surplus food into animal nutrition.
Its flagship product, EcoMix, blends different food streams into a single, consistent ingredient. Whether a truck brings in chocolate or spices, the output stays uniform. “If just 30% of cattle feed is replaced with EcoMix, milk output rises by 15%,” Dave says. That mix of consistency and benefit has become the company’s edge.
How does it work?
WasteLink manufactures all its products in-house and tests every batch before it goes to customers. It works with around 30-plus food suppliers, collecting surplus from across the country, including Wholsum Foods (Slurrp Farm, Mille) and The Baker’s Dozen.
It operates four factories in Sonipat, Lucknow, Mumbai, and Bengaluru, where the process runs through four stages: inspection and quality checks, segregation, unpacking of food from packaging, and drying, before the surplus is blended into final formulations.
WasteLink has built its tech backbone in-house, using Wrapper AI to power logistics, inventory, and formulations. “We collect from thousands of locations, so intelligent routing helps us stay efficient and even predict pickup requests,” Kasturirangan says.
On the production side, AI balances variations in food inputs. “Even with big suppliers, nutrition levels change daily,” Dave says. “AI helps us adjust the formula so the final product stays consistent.”
By doing this, WasteLink is replacing expensive commodities like maize and soya with its surplus-based ingredient, helping feed makers cut raw material costs while keeping nutrition levels steady.
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The business model and operations
WasteLink follows a B2B model, selling feed ingredients directly to animal feed manufacturers. The company charges Rs 25,000-Rs 35,000 per tonne, and has around 15-20 paying customers.
However, waste suppliers, too, sometimes earn from the partnership. “A small set of brands realise waste-to-value, meaning they make money from us by giving us surplus,” Kasturirangan says.
The startup has been selling from its early days; its first customer came within three months of incorporation and remains a client. “Earlier, we used to be more of a trading business,” Dave says. “Now we are a formulation-led product business. Many of our customers’ animals are now used to the taste of our feed, and there is no going back for them.”
WasteLink now employs 80 staff and about 250 labourers across its factories. Around half the team works in production, while a lean tech team of fewer than 10 manages the proprietary AI platform.
In FY25, WasteLink reported Rs 27 crore in revenue. The company raised $3 million in Series A funding, led by Avana Capital, in August 2025.
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Competition and challenges with trust
One of the toughest challenges has been earning trust, with both food suppliers and feed buyers. “Trust is the biggest USP in agri,” Dave says. Suppliers had to be sure their surplus would be used properly, and buyers needed confidence that the product would always be safe and consistent.
To make this possible, WasteLink built new processing methods, like removing packaging at scale and drying food with different moisture levels.
Globally, players like Darling Ingredients in the US are in a similar space. Dave says WasteLink is the only organised player working at this scale in India. “Informal competitors exist, but mostly in unorganised recycling and trading,” he says.
Market size and the road ahead
The Indian animal feed market is already huge. According to IMARC reports, the market was valued at around Rs 1,110 billion in 2024 and is expected to see a CAGR of 6.9%, reaching Rs 2,025 billion by 2033. “In the next three years, we are aiming to process 24,000 tonnes per year,” says Dave.
With the funding, WasteLink aims to grow its capacity 4-5X at its factories and add more products for poultry and aquaculture.
“We are already a pan-India company, but we want to double down at all locations,” Dave says.
The team also plans to bring in new types of inputs, strengthen its AI lab for traceability and formulation, and explore export markets where maize alternatives are in demand.
