Nearly a decade ago, the EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced a national goal to reduce food loss and waste by 50 percent by 2030, and advocates like the Zero Food Waste Coalition, which NRDC cofounded, continue to press for this target. This goal aligns with the U.N. Sustainable Development Goal 12.3, which aims to “halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses” by the same year. To get there, every stage of the supply chain must make big changes now.
Preventing waste on farms
A wide variety of factors, including market pricing, labor costs, and strict standards set by retailers impact the decision-making for harvesting produce. At this stage, prevention is key. Farmers who overplant run the risk of generating more than they can harvest or sell. Cutting down on this waste requires close collaboration between farms, manufacturers, and retailers.
One of the practices suggested by both the EPA and ReFED is whole crop purchase, where instead of specifying an amount, manufacturers agree to accept the whole batch of produce, even if some of it is misshapen or blemished, etc. Along the same lines, partial order acceptance aims to reduce the amount of discarded food from farms while also ensuring the usual quality controls are met. By adjusting standards in these and other ways, more food moves off the field and into the processing line.
Other pathways to minimizing waste include improving storage technology at farms and gleaning, whereby farmers establish partnerships with organizations like soup kitchens and food banks to donate leftover produce. Adapting our food supply to climate change—particularly in light of the impacts to cropland from increasing flooding, drought, and other extreme weather events—also assures less waste at ground level.
Holding retailers accountable
Retailers hold a key position, as they can influence the amount of waste both before and after the food reaches them in the supply chain. To start, they set—and therefore, can relax—the cosmetic standards that directly impact the harvesting and manufacturing stages. (This also requires a shift in consumer mindset toward foods that appear imperfect.)
Dynamic pricing for perishable produce can help move more products off the shelves. For example, when stores see a batch of produce soon to be past its prime, offering a discount can entice customers to purchase it. Planning for when certain products will be in higher or lower demand can also help retailers better manage inventory. And as with farms, establishing donation partnerships for surplus food is critical. Whatever can be rescued and redistributed must help meet the urgent food needs of local community members.
Changing consumer habits
Since consumers are the biggest source of food waste, it will take ongoing public outreach to fill in the knowledge gap about food waste prevention and build new habits. Educational institutions such as universities, for example, can work to draw attention to plate waste and encourage students to take right-sized portions. (Elementary schools can also strive to lengthen lunch periods to allow their students more time to eat what’s served.) Cities and towns can publicize food scrap recycling opportunities and educate residents on the scale of the problem.
As individuals, we can all inspect our own purchasing behaviors to reduce what we toss, in addition to making changes around the kitchen to lengthen the lifespan of our food. NRDC’s Save the Food public education initiative aims to teach consumers about food management at home to avoid waste. Some of our areas of focus include food storage, recipes for using up all parts of a food, and meal prepping.
Federal and state initiatives
Recently, federal policymakers have made some significant strides in helping to get food waste under control. Most recently, the White House released a first-ever national strategy to help the United States meet its goal to cut food waste by half by 2030; tactics include educational and behavioral change campaigns. The Climate Pollution Reduction Grants, authorized under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, provide $5 billion to states, local governments, tribes, and territories to develop and implement climate action plans that reduce GHG emissions; several states and cities have opted to include food waste reduction within their strategies. In September 2023, the EPA issued a $100 million grant through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to expand recycling infrastructure and waste management. This included $44 million to specifically support projects that prevent and recycle wasted food. And in January 2024, the USDA allocated $11.5 million to implement composting and food waste reduction projects across 23 states.
State lawmakers have also rolled out a variety of programs and policies to address food waste. Maryland’s House Bill 264 requires producers of more than two tons of food waste per week to divert their food waste from landfill disposal, joining California, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, and others, which all have similar restrictions. Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality is educating and engaging with households about reducing waste, including increasing outreach to Spanish-speaking communities. California introduced a bill in 2023 that will standardize and clarify date labels on food.
City initiatives
City officials across the departments responsible for waste management, land use, and local health and food regulations are also increasingly focused on cutting food waste. NRDC’s Food Matters’s Initiative has partnered with Baltimore, Denver, Nashville, and other cities to devise policies and programs that help scale up food waste prevention, surplus food rescue, and food scrap recycling operations and initiatives. The solutions take into account what strategies may be most feasible and effective in different communities. They include everything from establishing food scrap drop-offs at neighborhood farmers’ markets to helping local governments shape ambitious zero-waste plans to teaching restaurants how to cut waste in the kitchen and participate in food donation programs. And cities are reaping the benefits of these efforts. Not only are they cutting down on the harmful environmental impacts of food waste, but they are also lowering sanitation costs, addressing community food gaps, and improving local well-being in other ways too.
It’s a bitter paradox that millions of American households face food insecurity at some point in the year, given the immensity that we waste. Those advocating to solve our food crisis show us it doesn’t have to be this way.
