The Compost Coder: How a Gosford Startup Is Turning Waste Data Into Gold

Priya Menon launched CircleLoop out of a converted shopfront on Mann Street, Gosford, in February 2025 with $40,000 in seed funding and a single paying client. Eighteen months later, her platform manages organic waste logistics for more than 60 restaurants and cafés across the Central Coast, redirecting an estimated 4.2 tonnes of food scraps per week to regional composting operations and hobby farms from Wyong to Wamberal.

The timing is pointed. Hospitality operators across NSW are under growing pressure to divert organic waste from landfill as the state government's Food Organics and Garden Organics rollout accelerates through 2026, and the economics are finally working in favour of businesses that get the infrastructure right early. CircleLoop charges venues a $220 monthly subscription and takes a small logistics coordination fee per collection — a model Menon refined after two failed iterations that tried to charge farms instead of restaurants.

A Platform Built in Gosford's Backyard

Central Coast Council's Startup Central program, which operates out of the Kibble Park precinct in Gosford's CBD, gave CircleLoop its first desk space and connected Menon to the regional agribusiness network that eventually became her supply side. The program has supported 38 startups since 2023, and CircleLoop is the first to cross $500,000 in annualised revenue, according to figures the council's economic development office confirmed this week.

The matching algorithm at the core of the product is deceptively simple: venues log their weekly waste volumes and pickup windows through a mobile app, and the software pairs them with the nearest registered farm or composting operator based on capacity, geography and organic matter type. Coffee grounds, for instance, are routed differently from vegetable off-cuts. A dairy farm south of Wyong takes spent grain from two Erina Fair food court operators. A market gardener near Peats Ridge collects citrus and herb waste from three restaurants in the East Gosford dining strip.

The logistics are handled by a network of eight owner-operator drivers who use CircleLoop's routing tool on a gig basis — a structure Menon chose deliberately to keep fixed costs low while the platform scales. Driver earnings average around $680 per week based on current route volumes, she has said in previous industry presentations.

What the Numbers Say — and What Comes Next

Australia's commercial food waste problem is stubborn. The federal government's National Food Waste Strategy Feasibility Study, updated in late 2024, estimated that Australian businesses collectively waste food worth $36.6 billion each year, with hospitality among the highest-volume sectors. State-level FOGO mandates are tightening, but the missing link in most regions is last-mile logistics infrastructure — precisely the gap CircleLoop is trying to fill.

On the Central Coast, where the council's own 2025 waste audit found that organic material still constituted 42 percent of commercial landfill contributions from the Gosford and Wyong areas, there is measurable headroom. Menon has been in conversations with Central Coast Council since March about a potential formal procurement arrangement that would give CircleLoop preferred-provider status for the council's own venue and event waste contracts, though no agreement has been signed.

A $250,000 funding round is expected to close before the end of August, with two Sydney-based impact investment firms among the prospective backers. Menon has indicated the capital would fund a technical hire and expand the driver network into the Hunter Valley by the end of 2026.

For other founders watching from Startup Central's open-plan desks on Georgiana Terrace, the CircleLoop trajectory offers a practical template: pick a regulatory tailwind, build the infrastructure layer that government mandates create demand for, and price to the business that can most easily absorb the cost. Whether the platform can hold its competitive position once larger logistics players notice the FOGO opportunity is the question the next funding round will have to answer — but for now, a Gosford startup is moving faster than anyone expected.