It’s a cruel summer: Surging temperatures are spiking climate anxieties, and food insecurity concerns remain urgent. In Pennsylvania, nearly 1.7 million people are food-insecure, and 2024 has seen the state’s highest SNAP enrollment ever. At the intersection of these crises is the daunting challenge of food waste: In the U.S., as much as 40% of the food we produce is wasted, representing a tremendous climate impact, while one in 10 people goes hungry. Can we fix it?
Interest in addressing food waste through policy is accelerating at both the state and federal level. In December the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released the “Draft National Strategy for Reducing Food Loss and Waste and Recycling Organics.”
These agencies have it right — the time to create a national food waste reduction strategy is now. Creating an effective one, however, will require rethinking not only our entire system for handling surplus food but also the charitable food system itself. Their report fails to do that.
In order to create the most impact on both the climate and nutrition security, regulators must look to the expertise of food recovery organizations.
The Draft National Strategy includes a plan to “facilitate and incentivize food donations to improve access to healthy and affordable food.” Increasing food donations from consumer-facing businesses like grocery stores and restaurants (where 18 million tons of waste occurs each year) cannot happen without an understanding of the challenges of recovering retail surplus and the limitations of the prevailing, decades-old retail food donation system.
That historic model is based on regularly scheduled pick-ups with refrigerated trucks, which then often bring donations back to food banks to be sorted, inventoried, stored and redistributed through a network of food pantries and emergency food assistance organizations. This model is designed to address hunger and is a critical component of hunger relief, but it is not designed to address food waste.
Retail food surplus happens in a vast and highly distributed network, encompassing over 180,000 supermarkets, super centers, natural food stores and convenience stores, not to mention cafes, bakeries, restaurants and institutions like schools that provide food services. The surplus generated in this sector is also a moving target, often occurring in unpredictable types and quantities. And it’s time-sensitive, consisting largely of ripe produce and other fresh foods approaching the end of their shelf life, which need to be eaten or stabilized promptly. These items are exactly the kind of nutrient-dense food that is greatly needed by, and often unavailable to, people who are food-insecure, but they are not easily metabolized by the traditional emergency food system.
These highly perishable foods are, however, the staple of food recovery organizations (FROs), which focus on maximizing the prevention of waste at both the donor and the distribution level. Across the country, FROs have reached beyond traditional food assistance networks to find a broader and more diverse range of distribution partners for excess food. They have created innovative distribution mechanisms and systems, working with organizations including low-income housing agencies, WIC offices, veterans programs, and other collaborators that are able to receive and distribute rescued food seven days a week, at locations that food-insecure people already live near and frequent.
By capturing a larger and more varied share of retail surplus, and getting more of it to dinner tables before it goes bad, this approach not only reduces food waste but also increases nutrition security in underserved communities. Research indicates that target populations are already seeing increased access to nutritious food in areas served by a robust food rescue organization.
In fact, Pittsburgh has become a key proving ground for such results. For example, a 2018 GIS study and a subsequent 2021 follow-up on areas served by 412 Food Rescue in the region found a dramatic increase in food access for people in multiple categories, including those living in transit deserts, in food deserts and in areas characterized as low income. Strategies honed here are then shared across the organization’s partner network, which serves 37 North American counties.
Considering the demonstrated impacts of FROs, it is disheartening to see them mentioned only once in relation to actual funding in the National Draft Strategy, sharing a planned $15 million with other stakeholders. This item counts toward a total of $26.5 million set aside for food loss and waste prevention efforts. Meanwhile, the document earmarks over $700 million for recycling — and anaerobic digestion-related initiatives, even though the EPA’s own Food Waste Scale identifies donation as preferable to such downstream interventions.
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The Food Waste Scale places food donation and upcycling as the second-most preferred intervention, after avoiding waste by producing, buying and serving only what is needed. The EPA notes, “Donating food is one of the most preferred pathways because it ensures that food and the resources used to produce it are not wasted. When food is donated, it is used for its intended purpose which is to nourish people.” Given the agency’s own priorities, one would hope to see a greater investment toward donation in its Draft National Strategy, with an emphasis on the most impactful donation models.
FROs are delivering that impact, field-testing new methods and technologies, generating data, and creating measurable reductions in waste and food insecurity. Those tasked with creating food waste policy should leverage the expertise of these organizations and invest in the solutions they have pioneered.
Alyssa Cholodofsky is CEO of 412 Food Rescue.