The Compost King of Gosford: How One Central Coast Founder Is Turning Food Waste Into a Seven-Figure Business

Kieran Malouf started with two restaurant clients, a secondhand trailer, and a patch of land off Manns Road in Narara. Three years later, his circular-economy startup Loopback Organics processes more than 18 tonnes of food scraps a week, supplies finished compost to three Central Coast Council community garden programs, and is closing in on $1.2 million in annual revenue. On July 1, the company moved its operations hub to the Wyong Enterprise Corridor — a deliberate shift that signals where Malouf thinks the region's innovation economy is heading.

The timing matters. Across Australia right now, hospitality operators, councils, and logistics companies are scrambling to find cost-effective alternatives to landfill as state-based organics waste levies tighten. In New South Wales, the EPA's Waste and Sustainable Materials Strategy 2041 sets a target of cutting organic waste to landfill by 50 per cent by 2030. That deadline is four years away, and the infrastructure to meet it barely exists outside Sydney's inner suburbs. Loopback, which operates entirely within the Central Coast local government area, is betting it can fill that gap from the outside in.

From Narara Backyard to Wyong Corridor

The Wyong Enterprise Corridor — a 340-hectare industrial precinct stretching along Pacific Highway between Wyong and Tuggerah — has attracted a clutch of logistics and light-manufacturing tenants over the past five years, but startup operators have been slower to arrive. Loopback took a 2,000-square-metre lease at $148 per square metre annually, well below comparable Sydney Basin industrial rents, which have been pushing past $220 per square metre through much of 2025 and into this year. That cost gap is precisely the kind of structural advantage that Central Coast boosters have been arguing about for a decade without much to show for it — until recently.

Loopback's collection routes now cover more than 60 food-service businesses, from Erina Fair's food court operators to a cluster of aged-care facilities in Woy Woy. The company runs three refrigerated collection vehicles on a five-day-a-week rotation. Its composting site in Narara, which it retains for processing, holds certification under the Australian Standard AS 4454-2012 for composts, soil conditioners and mulches — a credentialing step that many small organics operators skip and that opens the door to commercial agricultural contracts.

What Loopback's Growth Signals for the Broader Startup Ecosystem

The Central Coast Startup Hub, based at the Central Coast Industry Connect offices on the Pacific Highway in Tuggerah, has tracked 23 new startup registrations in the first half of 2026 — up from 14 in the same period last year. Program manager Sasha Draper has pointed publicly to the Wyong corridor and the Gosford CBD's Launchpad precinct on Mann Street as twin anchors for that growth, with Gosford drawing more digital and professional-services founders while Wyong pulls in those with physical-product and manufacturing needs. Loopback fits that Wyong profile almost exactly.

Nationally, the picture for early-stage founders is complicated. AI data-centre development is crowding industrial land in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane, pushing up rents and squeezing out logistics operators. Central Coast, sitting roughly 90 kilometres north of Sydney's CBD, has absorbed some of that displacement — a dynamic that Malouf says brought him two new investors in the June quarter alone, both Sydney-based operators who were priced out of Western Sydney industrial sites.

The company is now in early conversations with three Hunter Valley horse studs about a manure-blending composting model — the kind of agricultural feedstock diversification that could significantly expand both its input base and its finished-product quality. If those contracts close, Loopback expects to hire four additional staff before December, pushing its headcount to 14. It is also applying for a $75,000 NSW Government Regional Business Development Grant before the August 15 deadline.

For founders watching from the sidelines, Malouf's trajectory offers a reasonably clear template: lock in low-cost space in the Wyong corridor early, chase state certification before it becomes a contract requirement, and treat the Coast's proximity to Sydney as an asset rather than a concession. The Mann Street Launchpad runs a free monthly founders' clinic on the first Wednesday of each month — the next session is August 5 — where Malouf is scheduled to speak. Seats are limited to 30.