ReFED in the Press

A new website from the nonprofit ReFed shares the data in detail and maps out potential solutions. At restaurants, for instance, because portions are typically so large that diners leave food on the plate, shrinking portions could divert 2.4 million tons of waste a year, avoiding 11.5 million...

The report by ReFED, the only national nonprofit working to end food waste, found that 35% of food, or 80.6 million tons, went uneaten or unsold in the United States in 2019 — an estimated loss of $408 billion. It also significantly contributed to greenhouse gas emissions due to the energy...

WE HAVE ONE WORD FOR YOU. JUST ONE WORD: Batteries.

Let's start in the U.S. President Joe Biden is moving quickly to accelerate the shift to electric vehicles and jump-start a domestic industry. Days after taking office, he signed an executive order to use American-made, union-built, zero-emission cars, vans and trucks to ferry...

Food Tank, in collaboration with the Refresh Working Group, is introducing a roadmap for policymakers around best practices in navigating the intersection of food and technology. Download the report HERE.  

Imagine a farm three-quarters the size of California that requires the amount of water used in Idaho and Texas combined. Instead of eating the food produced on this farm, however, it’s loaded onto a semitruck every 20 seconds and brought straight to a landfill.

This, according to Dana Gunders, executive director...

Food and beverage products featuring upcycled ingredients may qualify for the newly approved Upcycled Certification Standard. Slated to initially roll out in the United States in the next few months, the standard is intended to help consumers identify products that help reduce food waste.

United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI) has pledged to a host of new sustainability targets it aims to reach by the year 2030, including donating a quarter of a billion pounds of food, reaching zero landfill waste from its distribution centers, meeting a 30% reduction in distribution center energy intensity and...

Forty percent of all food produced in the US goes uneaten. Wasted food is a major contributor to multiple environmental and social problems that we face today – and most of this waste is happening right under our noses! ReFED estimates US households alone waste 76 billion pounds of food...

Dana Gunders serves as ReFED’s Executive Director. Dana is a national expert and one of the first to bring to light just how much food is wasted across the country. For almost a decade, she was a Senior Scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). She then launched Next...

One of the most exciting trends to watch for in the sustainable waste management sphere in 2021 is the rise of the private organics hauler. Call them a hauler, a composter, a waste management provider, a champion of soil; it doesn’t matter. These often small, local or regional-serving businesses have...

We look at Jan. 1 as a new chapter, a time to start fresh. However, if you find the idea of drafting up a new list of New Year’s resolutions a bit too abstract, the state Department of Environmental Conservation's 30-day wasted food challenge might be a fit, focusing on...

One-third of the world’s food is wasted, according to the United Nations (UN). That number jumps to 40 percent in the United States—enough to feed 2 billion people.

Uneaten food has dire consequences for the planet: decomposing waste releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas. According to the UN, if food waste was its...

The Wonderful Co., Los Angeles, is offering up to $1 million for a solution to the 50,000 tons of pomegranate husks generated each year for the production of Pom Wonderful juice.

Every December marks the end of the calendar and another year of egregious food waste in the United States. The holidays are an annual reminder to appreciate what we have — so why does this notion not extend to food?

There's a pervasive bit of mythology about food waste that it'll just turn into compost, even in a landfill. It's not true, but Amanda Weeks is used to the rumour. "Through some kind of magical thinking, people feel that their garbage is breaking down or getting recycled," she says, "and...

Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the renewal of the joint agency formal agreement including the Winning on Reducing Food Waste Initiative. The agreement reaffirms the agencies' commitment to improve coordination and communication...

The fresh produce waste challenge spans the entire supply chain.

While data from ReFED, a nonprofit committed to reducing U.S. food waste, indicates that 43 percent of the waste tonnage occurs at the consumer level, companies across the food supply chain create 57 percent of the waste.

Much of the problem can...

ReFED, a nonprofit committed to reducing U.S. food waste, estimates 52 million tons of food are sent to U.S. landfills annually. Another 10 million tons are discarded or left unharvested on farms.

The result is $218 billion spent on growing, processing, transporting, and disposing of food that is never eaten.

The Aspen Leadership Group is proud to partner with ReFED in the search for a Director of Development.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that a third of the world’s food is wasted every year. Forests are cleared, fuel is burnt and packaging in produced just to provide food which is thrown away. Meanwhile, rotting food in landfills releases more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

As a result,...

Phood, the New York City-based startup that uses a combination of weight scales, computer vision and AI to help foodservice operators reduce food waste, announced today that it has raised a $2 million Seed round of financing. The round was led by New Stack Ventures and Story Ventures. This brings...

ReFed today made two big announcements around its continued fight against food loss and waste. The U.S.-based nonprofit has launched a $10 million fundraising campaign to support projects and initiatives that reduce waste in the supply chain. Additionally, ReFed will release an online hub for food waste data and insights...

Food is the single largest line item on a food business’ profit and loss statement, yet its waste is largely unaddressed.

About 40% of wasted food is thrown out at consumer-facing businesses, and while many of them—restaurants and others—say food donation is a top priority, these early adopters are not the majority. But Rescuing Leftover Cuisine (RLC) has brought 300 businesses on board in 16 cities to help them ensure that...

Limited access to processing facilities is a top contributor to food waste, and a major hurdle that blocks mid-sized food and beverage businesses from scaling to the next level – two challenges that startup Matriark Foods is hoping to bypass with a unique business model that combines upcycling with a...

A lesson in understanding how much food is wasted in America — and what can be done about it.

White Pony Express (WPE) of Contra Costa County, California is rescuing food and diverting it to residents in need. With additional funding from ReFED’s COVID-19 Food Waste Solutions Fund, they are working to expand their current operations and create new initiatives.

We are providing access to all the sessions from Smart Kitchen Summit 2020 to Spoon Plus subscribers!

This post includes all the sessions from Smart Kitchen Summit Day Two.

The food industry is experiencing unprecedented change and disruption as we enter a new normal. Learn more at Food Edge Digital 2020, New England's leading food innovation summit, to connect with leaders in the food industry, learn about the latest trends, and gain actionable insights for business adaptation and success....

After a sharp increase in food waste following the outbreak of COVID-19, Dana Gunders, Executive Director of ReFED finds that the rate of food waste in the United States may be steadying.

The confectionery giant is working with software company Alloy to improve the efficiency of its operations by cutting down on overstock and out of stock items.

Partnership for a Healthier America and the Produce Marketing Association are expanding their COVID-19 Fresh Food Fund in a duel effort to ease food insecurity exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic and create a new market for produce that might otherwise be wasted.

World Food Day, established by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), is celebrated every year on October 16 since 1979. World Food Day 2020 likewise denotes the 75th anniversary of FAO with the theme “Grow, nourish, sustain. Together. Our actions are our future“.

Today on Point 01, Dana Gunders, Executive Director of ReFED, joins Aaron to discuss the complexity of food waste. Dana published the revolutionary report “Wasted: How America is Losing Up to 40% of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill” and from there began her journey as the "the...

When Ilene Isaacs started, she didn’t really know what food rescue was; only that she wanted to help eradicate hunger. Now she’s an anti-hunger advocate with 18 years’ experience and 250 agencies relying on her work.

Tackling the food waste topic in a 30-minute panel is something of an impossible undertaking, given the size of the problem. That’s why at Day 2 of Smart Kitchen Summit 2020, myself, Apeel Sciences’ CEO James Rogers, Chiara Cecchini of the Future Food Institute, and Alexandria Coari of ReFED zeroed...

The confectionery giant is working with software company Alloy to improve the efficiency of its operations by cutting down on overstock and out-of-stock items.

Wow, what a first day at Smart Kitchen Summit. We learned that the recipe is alive and well (sorry, Tyler Florence), hacked together new kitchen products with Scott Heimendinger and saw a live debut of a new pizza robot, not to mention all the great in-person meetings, breakout sessions,...

Entrepreneurs are taking on food waste across the world in some truly creative ways — turning what many consider garbage into delicious — and nutritious — products. 

Heading into fall, this batch of career updates from the worlds of sustainability and business is somewhat top-heavy. It's not necessarily that the game of musical chairs has intensified in the C-suite, but you'll note major executive moves at big apparel, food, energy, finance and technology corporations, some of which...

If we want to reduce food waste, we need consumer-led solutions — which can be sparked by retailers. Brands, manufacturers and other food system actors get their message through to consumers if retailers open the door for them.

Consumers wasted more food in 2017 than ever before, according to a Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting review of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data. They wasted about 41 million tons of food, making up 15 percent of trash thrown out. 

 The Wonderful Company, a global company dedicated to harvesting health and happiness around the world through its iconic consumer brands, announced the launch of the Wonderful Innovation Challenge. Offering up to $1 million in funding and development resources to innovators, the competition seeks...

Campaigners against food waste say the pandemic has made some consumers in rich countries look at how much food they bin.

The Upcycled Food Association (UFA) announces its 100th Member to join since the nonprofit was formed less than a year ago: DOLE Packaged Foods, LLC. This marks the first global, consumer-facing company to become a member of UFA, an organization with the mission of reducing food waste through food upcycling....

The Wonderful Company, a global company dedicated to harvesting health and happiness around the world through its iconic consumer brands, announced the launch of the Wonderful Innovation Challenge. Offering up to $1 million in funding and development resources to innovators, the competition seeks to discover economic and environmentally friendly pilot...

When the coronavirus pandemic forced Rohini Singh to work from her house, she realized the grocery bill was likely to rise since her family of three would be mostly eating at home. She also didn't want to waste food, with shelves in some supermarkets emptying in the early days of...

The Wonderful Company is offering up to $1 million in funding and development resources to innovators that can discover economic and environmentally friendly pilot ready solutions for pomegranate husks.

 A California juice company is offering $1 million in funding and development resources for a plan to do something about the 50,000 tons of pomegranate husks the firm disposes of each year.

Over one-third of food in the U.S. is lost or wasted — about $161 billion worth every year — a problem that has only been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. As Tuesday marks the first annual International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste, created last year by...

The Wonderful Company announced the launch of the Wonderful Innovation Challenge. Offering up to $1 million in funding and development resources to innovators, the competition seeks to discover economic and environmentally friendly pilot ready solutions for the 50,000 tons of pomegranate husks generated each year by juicing POM Wonderful pomegranates....

What emerging strategies have been employed to tackle food waste during the pandemic, and how can we scale these strategies in the future?

When the coronavirus pandemic first disrupted food supply chains earlier this year, huge amounts of animals and produce raised for human consumption were lost. But the food system...

Some of the most gut-wrenching images of disrupted supply chains from the pandemic have been the mounds of food that have gone to waste. A product the size of a sugar packet could be part of the solution.

Hazel Technologies makes a biodegradable item that extends the shelf life of...

Mountains of produce, including eggs, milk and onions, are going to waste as the COVID-19 pandemic shutters restaurants, restricts transport, limits what workers are able to do and disrupts supply chains. And as that food decays, it releases methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

"Goodr sources all of our produce directly from farmers on a daily basis, and it's great. So, we've been able to work with them. We have won a grant from a company called ReFED which allows us to actually recovery excess food from farmers and businesses at a low cost...

Back in May, our partners at ReFED — a national nonprofit dedicated to advancing solutions to food waste — announced their COVID-19 Food Waste Solutions Fund, an initiative to fund organizations fighting the most immediate food waste needs during the crisis by rescuing food and providing it to hunger relief organizations...

Broken supply chains have left farmers across the globe with mounds of food waste. Facing the prospect of plowing over fields and euthanizing pigs, some of these farmers — like Clint and Shelly Pinkelman — are mitigating their losses by going straight to consumers.

You may have heard the term “upcycled food” used in the past year — or maybe not. In any case, you'll likely be hearing it more now that it has a specific definition.

The term, which has been used to refer to the reduction of food waste by using more...

The Department of Agriculture says 30% to 40% of food goes to waste in the United States — and the figure is likely higher because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Some farmers have resorted to dumping milk and plowing over crops because the universities, schools and restaurants that normally purchase large quantities of food...

Food waste in the U.S. isn’t a new phenomenon, but the coronavirus outbreak and its consequences have made it hard to ignore. About 35% to 40% of food ends up as garbage, with the biggest chunk of that happening in the home. Yet 37 million Americans experienced food insecurity in...

Jam made with bacon scraps; fish jerky that turns unwanted fish into something delicious; granola bars and snack puffs crafted from spent brewing grams.

These are just a few examples of how entrepreneurial ingenuity is transforming food byproducts and scraps into novel and often very nutritious products for human consumption, creating...

Food waste is taking on a new meaning in the pandemic era.

Dumped milk in Wisconsin. Smashed eggs in Nigeria. Rotting grapes in India. Buried hogs in Minnesota. These disturbing images have stirred outrage around the world. But here’s the surprising part: the world may not actually be wasting more than...

ReFED is an American initiative that is attempting to provide viable food waste solutions and relief for organizations, farmers, and those in need. Throughout the month of May, ReFED is giving more than $1,000,000 USD in order to prevent 10 million pounds of food waste in the duration and wake...

For the last two weekends in a row, community organizer Molly Page has led a group of about two dozen volunteers to a rural Idaho farm on an unusual rescue mission: saving potatoes. Page got the idea after seeing a photo posted to Facebook advertising free potatoes at a farm...

Prior to COVID-19 becoming our new reality, food waste was already a serious issue. At a time when one in seven Americans is food insecure, 52 million tons of food ends in a landfill, not counting another 10 million tons of food that is left in fields discarded or unharvested each...

After a year of progress, growth, and learning, Rethink Food Waste Through Economics and Data (ReFED) entered 2019 with momentum that hasn’t let up.

IN THE BEST of times, the United States wastes 40 percent of its food annually, amounting to about 63 million tons. The collective response to the coronavirus pandemic, from panic buying at grocery stores to restaurant closures, is bound to inflate that percentage, food loss experts say, at a time...

An American firm has developed an organic coating that extends the shelf-life of fruit and vegetables. Might it save the world?

This week we’ve got stories on safer pesticide coatings, climate-friendly snacks and a very personal way astronauts can sustain space agriculture.

There’s something new on the menu. This fall, we’ll be debuting a new component to the VERGE conference ecosystem: VERGE Food, focusing on the rising interest in sustainable food systems.

Imagine buying five bags of groceries, paying for them, then throwing two directly into the trash. Unfortunately, that’s reality — Americans throw out roughly 40% of the food they buy.

Waste360 announces the winners of its fifth annual 40 Under 40 awards program, which honors the next generation of leaders who are shaping the future of the waste and recycling industry. Over the past five years, Waste360 has honored some of the industry’s brightest and most...

Twenty years ago, there were 2 options for delivery: pizza or Chinese food. Today there’s no limitation, thanks to third party delivery services such as DoorDash, GrubHub, and up-and-comer, Uber Eats. Data firm Second Measure reported U.S. restaurant...

A Brooklyn wine bar and restaurant is one of a handful of establishments in different cities that are trying to eliminate waste from their premises.

Extended Producer Responsibility, single-use packaging bans, recycling challenges, and other issues related to current and future legislative policy are discussed in this Q&A with AMERIPEN.