The U.S. retail sector generated approximately 4.99 million tons of surplus food in 2022, sending 34.5% to the landfill or incineration, and donating only 19.5% (ReFED, 2023). Retailers recognize that the food they discard could be helping community members in need to live better, healthier lives. They recognize the considerable environmental benefits and cost savings they could achieve by improving donation and reducing waste. Yet, the solutions are not always simple, and regardless of the plans set at corporate headquarters, success often rests on the day-to-day actions of frontline workers ..read more

Amelia Rowniewski, a first-year public health major at American University (AU), delivered a presentation titled ‘Bite Sized Nutrition Banter’ at the Mathias Student Research Conference on April 6th. The research delved into the awareness levels among AU college students regarding the nutritional public health implications of wasted food. This project stemmed from her final assignment in the American University Complex Problems course, ‘Food for Thought: Why Waste?’, which she completed last semester. The “Food for Thought: Why Waste?”, created by Dr. Hannah Jardine (AU Center for Teaching, R ..read more

By Miles Baker U.S. consumers waste a lot of food – about 30% of what they buy! However, not all households are alike when it comes to waste amounts and patterns, and understanding these differences can guide food waste reduction campaigns and interventions. An open-access article titled “Segmenting U.S. consumers by food waste attitudes and behaviors: Opportunities for targeting reduction interventions” by Ph.D. candidate Ran Li and Dr. Brian Roe appears in the March 2024 issue of Sustainable Production and Consumption. The primary impact anticipated from this research is to inform and g ..read more

Multiscale RECIPES (‘RECIPES’) is an interdisciplinary research network of 50 faculty and staff researchers co-creating solutions to wasted food. Through our research process, we partner with non-profits, industry leaders, frontline workers, community members, and policymakers to transform wasteful systems to promote sustainability, equity, and resilience. Over 60 RECIPES collaborators from 14 institutions attended the RECIPES Annual Meeting in June 2023. Key outcomes of Year 2 were the continued growth of connections among researchers within our network and with external partners, expansion o ..read more

By Claire Corbasson and Ariella Knight PEELS (Packaging Evolving and Encasing Little Snacks). Using a convergence framework, we brought together our different backgrounds (sustainability science and industrial design) to explore the potential of a biopolymer made from fruit and vegetable peels as a food packaging alternative to plastic. Being part of a large multi-university network dedicated to tackling the wicked problem of food waste felt a little intimidating at first. There is a lot of jargon. What’s a cluster (in this case)? What’s the difference between convergence and collaboration? Do ..read more

On the second annual International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste, we are excited to launch Multiscale RECIPES for Sustainable Food Systems. From farm to supply chain issues to consumer behavior and in some parts of the world, a lack of refrigeration, wasted food is a challenge spanning from the local to the global, with diverse challenges in every region of the world. In the United States, 40 percent of food produced is never eaten, which represents waste in the forms of lost resources and pollution from food production, economic costs to businesses and households, and decreased food ..read more