Every day, businesses across Phoenix face a simple but urgent question: where does food go when it’s not sold? For Denali, the answer is an opportunity. Denali finds value in uneaten food and extends its life by transforming these everyday materials into renewable products that feed the environment. Material often viewed as a messy, time-consuming problem becomes part of a larger solution. 

Across the metro area, Denali partners with restaurants, grocery stores, foodservice providers, food manufacturers and commercial kitchens to collect uneaten food and used cooking oil. For restaurants, it’s a seamless, dependable service that keeps kitchens running efficiently. For the environment, it’s a meaningful shift toward cleaner energy. 

Food scraps from a commercial kitchen or institution, or unsold food from a grocery store, now support greener public spaces, healthier landscapes, and more resilient ecosystems throughout the region. 

Unused food remains one of the most significant and overlooked environmental challenges in the United States, with nearly 40 percent of food going uneaten and 24 percent of it ending up in landfills. In 2024, this nationwide organics recycling company recovered and converted 106 million gallons of used cooking oil into feedstock for renewable biofuel, helping reduce lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80 percent compared to traditional petroleum fuels. 

In Phoenix, Denali is helping change that narrative. Through partnerships with businesses, institutions, and municipalities, the company collects billions of pounds of non-edible food materials each year, keeping them in circulation and out of landfills, and prevents them from generating methane, a greenhouse gas more than 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Denali also operates AllPro, where used cooking oil is converted to biofuel.  

The impact adds up quickly. A single ton of recovered food material can prevent significant greenhouse gas emissions and create new, beneficial uses. Multiplied across an entire metro area, the result is a system that not only reduces reliance on landfills but also actively contributes to a more sustainable local economy. 

At the center of this effort is Denali’s management of the City of Phoenix’s composting facility. In an arid environment where soil quality is critical and water conservation is paramount, compost plays an essential role—improving soil structure, increasing water retention, and reducing the need for chemical fertilizers. Organic materials are transformed into nutrient-rich compost that supports landscaping, agriculture, and land restoration across the region, creating a closed-loop system that returns valuable nutrients to the soil. 

For Denali’s customers, the value goes beyond collection. Denali’s programs are designed to integrate easily into daily operations. The company offers consistent pickups, clean equipment, and clear processes that reduce disruption. Businesses also gain the ability to track and report their impact, from materials recovered to emissions reduced. In a marketplace where sustainability is increasingly tied to brand reputation and stakeholder expectations, these metrics matter.

“Customers are asking more questions about what happens behind the scenes,” says Margaret Wilson, Denali’s general manager of the local Phoenix facility. “Being able to show that your food is being repurposed into fuel, into compost – that’s powerful.”

Denali’s model is practical, scalable, and increasingly necessary. As cities grow and environmental pressures intensify, solutions that extend the life of resources, lower emissions, and conserve materials will only become more important. 

Beyond the circular food system, Denali’s presence extends into the Phoenix community. The company is a proud sponsor of the SkyFire Film Festival, an event that brings together filmmakers and audiences to explore environmental challenges, complex issues, and solutions through inspirational storytelling. 

Denali is also an active member of the Arizona Compost Council, working alongside industry leaders, policymakers, and advocates to advance composting practices and expand organics recovery infrastructure statewide. These collaborations help ensure that the systems to support large-scale resource recovery continue to evolve alongside growing demand.

As an active member of the Global Challenge Lab project with Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Management, Denali also helps foster new ideas that can drive meaningful change far beyond Phoenix. This initiative brings together students from around the world to tackle complex sustainability challenges, offering fresh perspectives on issues like resource management and circular economies. 

In a region defined by both its challenges and its possibilities, Denali is helping businesses and communities move toward a more sustainable future—not through abstract goals, but through everyday actions that keep resources in use and create lasting impact.

Together, these efforts aim to create a broader shift in how food is viewed, not as something to be discarded, but as a resource with continued value. From renewable fuel to nutrient-rich compost, Denali’s work in Phoenix demonstrates how the right infrastructure, partnerships, and vision can unlock opportunity in unexpected places.

In Phoenix, where growth continues at a rapid pace, sustainability isn’t a trend – it’s a necessity. Solutions are already taking shape – one collection, one conversion, and one partnership at a time.