Earlier this month I was pleased to attend the Food Days conference in Seinajoki, Finland, organized by Silvia Gaiani and team at the Ruralia Institute of the University of Helsinki.

My task was to discuss the imperative of food waste reduction as a key pillar in transforming the global food system to ensure a sustainable future.

In this month’s post, I am including excerpts from my talk as a useful educational resource for my students and all individuals seeking to accelerate the pace of change on food waste reduction.  So with that said, please see below:

Why Food Waste, Why Now? 

Good morning everyone.

Today I’d like to speak to you about the challenge of global food loss and waste, and why we must address this challenge now, at all levels, collaboratively and with urgency.

In other words, Why Food Waste, and Why Now?

And I’ll do this with a focus on five key high-level themes.

But first, a quick word about my background.

In addition to my academic side, I work with Leanpath – a technology provider focused on helping foodservice organizations prevent the occurrence of food waste in operations through measurement, data analytics, behavior change tools, and culinary-based coaching. 

Leanpath created the sector for automated measurement of food waste 20 years ago.

We work with foodservice organizations in all sectors – hotels, hospitality, healthcare, corporate, education, sports and leisure, and more.

We are mission-driven, so our goal is to make food waste prevention everyday practice in the world’s kitchens, and we currently operate in 50 countries and over 4,000 sites around the globe.

We typically cut an organization’s food waste in half within a year, inspiring workers, changing kitchen culture, and creating lasting triple bottom line benefits.

Now back to those key high-level themes.

Scope, Scale, and Impact

First, let’s start with scope and scale – because the scope and scale of the global food waste challenge is enormous, and illustrates the need for action – big, bold, collaborative action – with urgency.

How big is this problem?  We’re losing and wasting up to 40% of food production annually – over 2 billion tonnes of food.  And this occurs in developed and less developed countries.

Economically, this is a $1 trillion dollar problem.

UNEP notes that 60% of food waste emanates from households, while 28% is from foodservice, and 12% from retail.

On the consumer side, we are wasting the equivalent of more than 1 billion meals daily.

And not surprisingly, all of that waste takes a massive toll.

The social impact is clear – wasting this amount of food when over 700 million global citizens are hungry is a callous, systemwide disconnect – it is a moral and ethical failure.

And the emissions impact is severe – as the UNFAO notes, if food loss and waste were ranked as a country, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases behind the US and China (new estimates make it the second largest emitter).

And let’s consider some additional detail to help us truly grasp the impact of global food waste – because we can’t afford not to do so.

On nutrition, roughly one quarter of the world’s calories go uneaten due to food loss and waste, using a land mass greater than the size of China.

Food waste is water waste too, consuming one quarter of all freshwater used for Agriculture, and driving land degradation and deforestation as well.

The food system is the largest driver of biodiversity loss – so by extension, food loss and waste of 40% has immense impact.

And back to emissions – the food system accounts for 34% of global emissions, and food loss and waste alone accounts for 8-10%. 

To put that in perspective, even if all non-food GHGs were eliminated, emissions from the food system would still take the world past the 1.5°C mark around 2050 – and at current levels, food loss and waste would play a major role.

Further, as we know, we are overshooting planetary boundaries and approaching critical tipping points in natural systems. 

The Global Footprint Network recently reported that Earth Overshoot Day fell on July 24th, its earliest point ever, so we are consuming Nature’s services at the rate of 1.8 planets annually.

That is clearly not sustainable.

The food system, with food loss and waste of 40%, is largely responsible.

And we are all getting continual, highly visible signals of the impact of our unsustainable food system:

Record temperatures, droughts, massive wildfires, extreme storms and flooding, melting sea ice, ocean warming, and even glacier collapse.

We just have to make the connection. 

And we have to make it personal.

We all must engage in leading the rapid transition to a more sustainable food system, one with far less loss and waste – allowing us to feed a population of 10 billion global citizens by 2050 within planetary boundaries.

This is why the SDGs include a global goal (Target 12.3) for halving food waste by 2030 and reducing food losses along supply chains.

Target 12.3 can’t be ignored.  We have a responsibility to current and future generations to transform our food system – and reducing food loss and waste is an essential element of that transformation.   

The social, environmental, and financial cases for food waste reduction are clear.

The current level of global food loss and waste is truly nonsensical.  So the next logical question is:  why do we waste so much? 

Addressing the Why: The Key Drivers

Let’s explore the why. 

There are multiple drivers — but let me start by focusing on the two high-level themes that I think are most important.  First, at core, the most important driver of waste stems from improper valuation of our food resources.  In the developed world, we are blessed with a culture of abundance toward food.

Size matters.  We expect large portions, and we equate value with portion size and quantity.  Restaurants feed this mindset, bombarding consumers with advertisements for infinite combinations of large quantities for the dollar and buy-one-get-one offers – leading us to largely equate the value of our food experiences with quantity versus quality. 

This lowers the perceived value of food and leads to waste. 

In retail stores, we expect perfect, blemish-free produce – and we expect excessive variety of all types of fresh food on a 24×7 basis.  This leads to excessive stocking, culling, and waste.

Our highly automated food system literally surrounds us with food – we can get it anywhere – and digital Apps make it easy to buy more with minimal effort.

At the same time, consumers buy in bulk, and value freshness, yet many are confused by date labels, resulting in needless disposal of edible food.

And our food is relatively inexpensive, making it easy for us to buy, discard and replace it. 

The bottom line – we don’t value food properly, so it is easy to waste it.

In addition, improper valuation is coupled with an impersonal element.

We are increasingly disconnected from our food in the developed world, and how it grows in Nature, and all that is involved producing it and bringing it to us.  Thus, we don’t truly understand all of the embedded resource costs of food waste.  

Hunger seems very distant to many of us, and the other externalities of food loss and waste (such as water waste, deforestation, and biodiversity loss) seem intangible.  

Thus, we fail to make the personal connection that would lead us to act more responsibly.

Food wasting behavior becomes normalized, as opposed to food waste reduction behavior.

Further, our automated disposal systems whisk wasted food away, so despite the scale of it, we don’t really see it.

There is an important additional subliminal element to this – if we don’t value food properly, we are less willing to invest in actions, programs, and technology to help us reduce food waste.  This applies to us as individuals, policymakers, and business leaders.

In fact, we may go in the opposite direction.  In business, for example, established  operating paradigms often involve wasting food as a risk management tool.

Retailers want to attract and retain customers with perceptions of abundance and perfection, so they accept the excessive waste that comes with that model. 

Consumers, educated to expect perfection and excessive variety at any time, are conditioned that food can be easily discarded and replaced – so they over-purchase as a matter of routine.

Foodservice operations never want to run out of food, so they consistently overproduce.  For example, vegetable waste is our top wasted food category across our global platform at Leanpath.  Vegetables are viewed as inexpensive by operators, so there is a bias toward overproducing them and discarding the excess rather than risking running out.

Let’s be honest – there is discomfort in moving away from established procedures that accept such excessive waste – so for decades we have not addressed it – we’ve built operations around tolerating it.  We have allowed ourselves not to see it.

At Leanpath, we have long referred to this as “the elephant in the kitchen.”  Food waste in the foodservice sector has been excessive but unaddressed – for years it wasn’t even a safe discussion point.

And while visibility into food waste is (thankfully) growing, actions to reduce it have been slower to evolve.

But we must embrace the discomfort in change, because a future food system with 40% food loss and waste is simply not sustainable.

Embracing the Opportunity – Moving to Action with Urgency

So the “why” is clear, and the “now” is clear – the challenge is going “from now to how” – from awareness to action.

So how do we drive the necessary action?

I would argue that food waste reduction is at core a giant change exercise requiring action from all levels – individuals, educators, NGOs, business, and governments.

Everyone has a role to play. 

And we all have a responsibility to act with urgency.

A good perspective comes from UNEP’s Inger Andersen.  In a 2021 speech, she challenged all of us to work toward transforming our societies to live within planetary boundaries, focusing on climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste.

She noted that the core driver of these challenges is unsustainable consumption and production – to which the food system is of course central.

Andersen called for “whole of society action for a whole-of-society problem,” asking all of us to take personal responsibility to lead change.

And she provided an inspirational call to all of us, noting that “sustainability is about being on the right side of history.”

This is how we need to think. We all need to take responsibility for sustainable change, with individuals, educators, policymakers, and business leaders playing a role – particularly regarding food waste reduction and food system transformation.

We must establish a deeper connection between the scale and impacts of our wasted food.

Pope Francis provided us with an exceptional framing – nothing that “To throw food away means to throw people away.”

Continued awareness raising and educational efforts will be necessary to move us from a culture of abundance to a culture of responsibility toward food resources.

We need to create citizens who not only take action to reduce food waste in their homes, but who expect business to act responsibly to reduce food waste in operations.

And we need informed policy makers who will implement responsible legislation to advance food waste reduction, including strategies to:

  • Limit organic waste in landfills
  • Incentivize donation partnerships and upcycling initiatives
  • Require the measurement and transparent reporting of food waste in food organizations, and
  • Most importantly, drive systemic changes to reduce overproduction and prevent the occurrence of waste.

And in the business sector, it is time for food organizations to embrace the opportunity In food waste reduction (and especially prevention) and move past the blockers that limit action.

A great example involves the business case.  The business case for food waste reduction is well-established, going back several years to studies from the World Resources Institute indicating returns on investment of up to 14 to 1.

At Leanpath, we find that foodservice operations waste 4-10% of purchases, and up to 10-15% when including plate waste.  We provide a suite of customized trackers to meet the needs of kitchens of all sizes.  With our process, operators can typically halve food waste within a year and reduce food purchases by 2-6%, generating ROI of 2-7x.

And yet we have a sectoral problem.  Many food organizations set overly high bars for food waste reduction programs, making it easy to delay implementation. 

And NGOs reinforce this bias with a pilot mindset that encourages continual testing and evaluation rather than full organizational commitment.

All of this stems from a reluctance to change as well as a fear of disclosing waste figures.

For example, I recently spoke with an individual who reached out because their organization has a lot of waste, but who began the call by saying: “We want to reduce our food waste, but we don’t want to change what we do.”

This is a perfect illustration of the deep mindset change that needs to occur in the food sector. 

And there is real opportunity for food organizations here – because food waste reduction is not only about significant financial savings, it is also about inspirational change and transformational change.

It enables organizations to drive critical social and environmental gains while improving brand value and inspiring the workforce.

And the beauty for organizations is that reducing food waste in operations is completely aligned with optimizing financial performance.

Embracing Innovation, Prioritizing Food Waste Prevention

So there is strong incentive for food organizations to act on food waste reduction, and fortunately, there is also considerable innovation to leverage in all segments of the food sector.

Retailers are utilizing technology to optimize ordering quantities and nature-based coatings to extend the life of certain produce items.

Upcycling organizations are bringing real attention to the value in byproducts of existing food operations, creating innovative and often very healthy new products from what has long been discarded to landfill.

New Apps are enabling restaurants to find alternative sales and donation streams for excess meals on hand, enabling consumption of edible food versus waste.

And in the foodservice sector, Leanpath’s technology and proven process allows foodservice organizations to continually track and measure each case of food waste in operations, with highly granular, actionable data flowing to our analytics program.  Coupled with powerful graphs, images, behavior change tools, goal functionality, enterprise reporting, AI-generated tips, and culinary coaching from expert chefs, we enable foodservice organizations to make organizational commitments to food waste reduction, typically cutting waste by 50% within a year and providing ongoing support to maintain such reduction.

Leanpath helps organizations take a full-service approach to food waste, leading with prevention, while enabling downstream efforts to maximize the use of existing excess food – including donation to hungry people and diversion to animal feed, energy or composting.

We provide daily and weekly reports to guide operational focus in the immediate term, along with reporting to transparently show progress against baseline coupled with social and environmental equivalencies. 

We offer a mobile App so that busy chefs can leverage their food waste data while on the kitchen floor – where they want to be.

We provide AI technology to facilitate food waste tracking while also providing culinary-focused tips that enhance decision-making.  In the future, AI-driven contextual insights will take into account multiple factors and provide additional, highly relevant insights tailored to specific kitchen operations.

We help organizations achieve triple bottom line gains while also inspiring the workforce.

Further, we help clients engage their patrons on food waste reduction as well – getting at the consumer piece of food waste. 

One of our clients in the cruise sector hosts Progressive Dinners where their patrons can visit the galley and hear from chefs how Leanpath’s technology is used – showcasing their efforts to lead sustainable tourism.

Everything starts with organizational commitment to engage all employees to reduce food waste and maximize the value of food resources — making food waste visible and leveraging data to drive operational and behavioral change, backed by culinary coaching and transparent reporting.

And when organizations embrace food waste prevention, they unleash a critical  multiplier effect, because food waste is a nexus issue.  Reducing food waste allows for the redistribution of meals to the hungry, frees resources to address the root causes of poverty, reduces emissions, saves water, and reduces deforestation, biodiversity loss, and plastic pollution. 

In short, reducing food waste drives progress toward multiple Sustainable Development Goals.

Next-Level Leadership for Sustainable Change

Last, success in food waste reduction comes down to leadership: authentic, transformational, humanity-focused leadership – especially in the business sector.

This involves the courage to make bold, measurable, time-bound commitments to food waste reduction, backed by transparent reporting, and to unite the entire organization behind those commitments: 

  • making food waste visible,
  • changing established operating paradigms that tolerate (and perhaps encourage) waste,
  • and aligning business objectives with the true priorities of food security, climate change, and biodiversity loss. 

As an example, my organization, Leanpath, has been focused on driving global food waste reduction for just over 20 years. 

And since our founding, we have prevented over 175 million pounds (more than 80 million kilos) of food waste from occurring – in line with our vision of ensuring a sustainable future for all by eliminating global food waste.

We supported WRI with ideas for the development of the #123 Pledge in 2022, an effort designed to prompt global food organizations, governments, and other stakeholders to make bold, timebound, measurable, and transparent commitments to food waste reduction – with the goal of cutting food waste by at least 25% by the end of 2030.

And at COP27, we made the commitment to prevent an amount of food waste equivalent to 50 million meals by December of 2025 – because what greater point of connection with food waste can we make than hunger? 

We made this goal a focal point for our team – reporting on our progress weekly and monthly since our announcement at COP.

I’m pleased to announce here today that we exceeded that goal ahead of schedule, preventing an amount of food waste equivalent to more than 65 million meals since December of 2022 – and we will be announcing that achievement at Climate Week in New York next week.

This is an example of the type of goal that leaders of food organizations can set to inspire their employees to action.   

And it’s not just about business.

It is also about leadership in governments.  We need policymakers to establish national strategies – and associated action plans – for halving food waste at the country level.

And it is about leadership in education:  in my courses, I seek to create influencers for food waste reduction and food system transformation.

I made a personal commitment to the #123 Pledge to education hundreds of citizens on food waste reduction through my courses and blog content, and I met that goal.

Educated individuals can drive food waste reduction in their homes, and by raising expectations of responsible behavior among retailers and restaurants.

Again, we need a whole-of-society approach to the global food waste challenge.

We must move away from small thinking and go further and faster on food waste reduction. 

The Urgency of Now

To conclude, we are operating outside of planetary boundaries today, and yet we are not successfully feeding over 700 million citizens.

We must transform the global food system so that we can successfully feed a population of 10B within planetary boundaries in 2050.

We know this.

We also know that there is no such thing as a sustainable food system in which 40% of food produced is lost or wasted.

Change requires a whole-of-society approach, including:

  • Understanding the scope and scale of global food waste.
  • Continued awareness-raising and effective educational efforts.
  • Properly valuing our food resources and establishing a personal connection with the externalities of food waste.
  • Moving from a culture of abundance to a culture of responsibility toward food.
  • Making food waste visible and changing established operating paradigms that accept food waste.
  • Implementing responsible legislation
  • And embracing innovation with emphasis on food waste prevention.

But most of all it will take leadership, authentic leadership intent on transforming the food system with a focus on caring for humanity – especially from next-level business leaders, informed policymakers, educators, and informed individuals. 

Our future food system must be a sustainable food system – it must be equitable, and regenerative – and reducing food waste is one of the most cost effective and ethical ways to get there.

We are seeing tremendous innovation in the food waste space, but all of that innovation is worthless without leadership and organizational commitment to utilize it and change behavior.

We need the courage to change the existing operating paradigms.

The question for us as food system leaders today is:

How can we refocus our organizations to prioritize food waste reduction so that we can contribute to food systems transformation and advance the true priorities of food security, climate change, and biodiversity loss?

And the great thing is – doing so aligns perfectly with optimizing financial returns.

There is no choice.  We can’t limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C without fixing the food system.

We can take a lesson from Jose Andress and World Central Kitchen regarding “the urgency of now.”   

When it comes to food waste, let’s change our individual actions, our governmental policies, and our business operations to be on the right side of history.

And let’s do it with the urgency of now.