Worm Works LLC

Worm Works started as an idea in 2019 when George Ardura and Taylor Kamhong met each other in a dining hall at the University of Virginia through a mutual friend. George Ardura, at this point, was a long-time composter and worm farmer, to the point of moving his worm bin of several thousand worms from his parent's living room with him to his dorm room closet in college to compost the food waste produced by his friends. Taylor had a long-time fascination for worms and the wonders of worm composting (vermicomposting) and actually wrote her college admissions essay about worm farming. Their mutual friend, John, found it strange to have two friends constantly talk to him about worms, so he put them in touch so they could talk to each other about worms instead. From this, Worm Works was born.

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Soon after meeting, George and Taylor entered into and won the UVA Entrepreneurship Concept Competition on the Social Entrepreneurship track with the idea of Worm Works. After this, Worm Works won a spot in the 2020 UVA Darden School of Business VentureLab summer business incubator. Worm Works LLC was officially incorporated with the State of Virginia in April of 2020 and after a summer of testing and planning, our first food waste pickup was completed in August of 2020. Growing the business through the height of the Covid-19 pandemic was a challenge, especially because both George and Taylor were full-time students, but many lessons were learned and growth came especially through the personal mentorship of Lauren Gassman from Food Loop Composting. Worm Works and Food Loop Compost merged operations at the start of 2022 after over a year and a half of collaborating and working closely to provide composting service across Loudoun and Fairfax Counties. After graduating college, Taylor moved away to travel the country and pursue other interests. Since our first food waste pickup in August 2020, Worm Works has composted over 40,000 lbs of food scraps as well as many dozens of cubic yards of arborist-sourced wood chips, and now composts over 1000 lbs of Food and compostable waste each week at Gathering Springs Farm in Middleburg.