The problem: The founders worried about the amount of food that is wasted in both poor and affluent areas around the country, especially produce.

The innovation: Kinosol designed a solar-powered food dehydrator that also has a storage area for dried fruits and vegetables, grains, seeds and insects. Because only sunshine is needed, the company hopes the units will help both those in villages of developing nations and more affluent users who may want to reduce their carbon footprint by setting a unit out on an apartment building. The name comes from combining “kinetics” with “sol” for sun.

How they did it: The founders, all of them Iowa State University students or recent ISU graduates, got the idea while traveling internationally. They noticed the amount of scarce food that was being wasted due to lack of refrigeration. Working with ISU professors, they went through eight prototypes of food dehydrators that would be easy to ship and reassemble, would collapse for travel, require no tools and need only the sun to work. They tried squares and pyramids but settled on a cylinder with trays and an area below for storing the bags of dried goods. They tested the durable plastic demo units at ISU greenhouses and during visits by company representatives to Uganda and El Salvador. 

The payoff: The company already is selling the units to churches and nonprofit organizations that could offer them to communities where residents share them, and to individuals. The team is testing the dried products, but it appears they will last six months with proper ventilation. It’s fairly easy to dry two loads of fruits and vegetables a day. Because less food is wasted, families have more food to eat. And landfill space is saved. The goal is to sell 300 of the $250 units internationally by the end of 2016. Currently, 35 are operational in 16 countries. The company plans a Kickstarter campaign this fall to work on models for U.S. distribution.