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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Waste Reduction

ReFed and Others Introduce a New Policy Action Plan to Fight Food Waste

Several organizations banded together this week to release the US Food Loss & Waste Policy Action Plan, which calls on the Biden administration and Congress to take more action when it comes to fighting food waste. ReFed, the World Wildlife Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic (FLPC) are founding supporters of the new plan.

Between 30 and 40 percent of all food produced is lost or wasted, with $408 billion spent in the U.S. alone to grow, process, transport, and store food that is never consumed, according to an email from ReFed sent to The Spoon. Food waste is also a major contributor to climate change, with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimating its global footprint to be 3.3 billion tons of CO2 equivalent of greenhouse gases.

“Addressing this challenge is essential to building a regenerative and resilient food system that helps to mitigate climate change, reverse nature loss, and delivery positive outcomes for both producers and consumers,” notes the new plan.

To do that, the above organizations have compiled a list of recommendations for Congress and the Biden administration that would aid in the goal of reducing food waste and loss by 50 percent by 2030 (in accordance with the UN SDG Target 12.3.1). 

The US Food Loss & Waste Policy Action plan makes five recommendations, as noted by ReFed’s email: 

  • Invest in the infrastructure to measure, rescue, recycle, and prevent organic waste from entering landfills and incinerators
  • Expand incentives to institutionalize surplus food donation and strengthen regional supply chains
  • Assert the US Government’s leadership on FLW globally and domestically
  • Educate and activate consumers via private and public food waste behavior change campaigns
  • Require a national date labeling standard

The plan, which you can download and read in full here, outlines each of these recommendations and delves into specifics as to what action steps might be taken by Congress and the Administration. 

ReFed earlier this year unveiled its new Insights Engine, an online hub for both data and insights around the global food waste problem. It also includes an extensive database of companies innovating up and down the food supply chain to combat the country’s food waste issues.

Meanwhile, other notable supporters of the new Action Plan include Kroger, Unilever, Hellmann’s, and many other food companies.

How Restaurants Can Get Involved With the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act 2021

Recently, federal lawmakers introduced the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act 2021(BFFPPA 2021), which proposes sweeping changes in the U.S. in order to curb our reliance on plastics and in the process improve recycling and lower greenhouse gas emissions. 

Now restaurants are getting involved, too. In an email to The Spoon this week, Just Salad — a fast casual chain that’s also a champion for more sustainability in the restaurant biz — said it has publicly given its support to the legislation and enlisting other restaurants to do the same.

Supported by Beyond Plastics founder Judith Enck, who is also a former EPA Administrator, Just Salad has drafted a sign-on letter for members of the restaurant, food service, and food and beverage industries. The letter urges other restaurants to get involved with supporting the BFFPPA 2021. 

The BFFPPA 2021, introduced by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-CA), expands on an earlier version of the bill. It retains provisions such as mandates on minimum recycled content for some products, more extended producer responsibility (EPR) programs in the U.S., and bans on single-use plastics. Additionally, the new version includes provisions that would reduce plastic production at the source and focus more on reusables. Finally, the bill calls for better protection for communities of color, low-income communities, and indigenous communities, which are disproportionately impacted by plastic pollution.

Additionally, the BFFPPA 2021 would test more reusable programs, reduce single-use plastics, incentivize good design, lessen pollution and toxins, and strengthen environmental justice. 

Restaurants, of course, are a major contributor to our plastic problem, accounting for almost 78 percent of all disposable packaging. Meanwhile, the United States uses more than 36 billion disposable utensils per year, which is enough to wrap the globe 139 times, and globally we use hundreds of billions of plastic-lined single-use cups annually.

Just Salad, of course, is a major trailblazer when it comes to making the restaurant industry free of packaging waste (and any other form of waste). Others, including major QSRs like McDonald’s and Starbucks, have various efforts in place to curb our reliance on disposable packaging. However, at the moment, these efforts are largely siloed between individual restaurants and restaurant-related companies (e.g., DeliverZero).

“Many conscientious restaurants and food industry leaders are trying to reduce single-use waste and offer packaging that is truly recyclable and compostable,” Sandra Noonan, Just Salad Chief Sustainability Officer, told The Spoon. “But our efforts will remain fragmented until we have a national policy that makes disposable utensils available upon request only, encourages reusable bag and container systems, supports the circular economy, and improves waste management infrastructure.” 

Those restaurants and food businesses interested in showing their support can sign the letter here.

Starbucks Trialing a ‘Borrow a Cup’ Program in Seattle

Starbucks announced this week that it is currently trialing a reusable cup program at five Seattle, Washington stores for a period of two months. Dubbed the “Borrow a Cup” program, the trial is a continuation of an earlier single-store pilot that took place this past fall and winter in Seattle.

To participate, customers can order a beverage in a reusable cup for both in-person and mobile orders at participating stores. There is a $1 deposit. Once a customer is done with their drink, they can return the cup to participating stores, all of which will have return kiosks where customers can drop the empty cup. Upon returning the cup, customers also scan their Starbucks app to receive 10 bonus points on their Rewards account. (They get their deposit back, too.)

To clean the cups, Starbucks has partnered with a company called GO Box, which collects cups daily for cleaning and sanitizing, then returns them to circulation within 48 hours. 

Starbucks has also partnered with Ridwell, which offers a home pickup service for hard-to-recycle items, in case a customer can’t actually get to a store to return their cup. Users will get a Ridwell bin in which they can place their reusable cups for pickup at the front door. Users must purchase a Ridwell membership to join the pilot. Pricing varies from $10 to $14 depending on the type of subscription.

Starbucks noted today that a major hurdle on the path towards more widespread use of reusables is convenience. “The challenge is how to make choosing reusables as convenient as you expect from Starbucks – no extra steps – especially with 80% of Starbucks beverages being enjoyed on the go,” the company said in a statement today.

It’s all too possible that the extra steps of having to return a cup to the store or set up service with Ridwell may prove too involved for some consumers. Given that, we can assume the “Borrow a Cup” program is just one small step on Starbucks’ journey towards a more earth-friendly coffee business, particularly where cups are concerned. 

Worldwide, we throw out about 264 billion paper cups per year. Because of their plastic lining, these cups are difficult to recycle and therefore wind up in the landfill more often than not. In the U.S., reusable programs aren’t yet widespread, though that is slowly changing. Fellow QSRs Burger King and McDonald’s have both partnered with LOOP, the circular packaging service from TerraCycle, to trial reusable containers, including cups.

Both Starbucks and McDonald’s worked with Closed Loop Partners’ NextGen Consortium, which aims to reduce packaging waste, prior to the pandemic. Starbucks also had a “bring your own” reusables program in which customers could bring their own cups to Starbucks cafes and receive a small discount in return. That program was suspended because of COVID-19, and has not yet been reinstated at any Starbucks cafe.

Two Good and Full Harvest Team Up With Chef Marcus Samuelsson to Fight Food Waste in Restaurants

Two Good Yogurt today announced a new food waste initiative the company has launched in partnership with Chef Marcus Samuelsson and food rescue company Full Harvest. The partnership aims to get more restaurants to cook with rescued produce in their kitchens, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

Chef Marcus Samuelsson will lead the campaign by using produce rescued by Full Harvest at his NYC restaurant Red Rooster Harlem during Earth Week (April 19–24). The campaign will also support Two Good’s One Cup, Less Hunger initiative, which donates a portion of the proceeds from its yogurt product to City Harvest food banks.

Other restaurants are invited to email wastelessfeedmore@twogoodyogurt.com to get involved with Samuelsson’s Earth Week campaign. 

“We all know that food is [a] number one reason for climate change,” Samuelsson told me over the phone recently, adding that chefs’ carbon footprints are impacted by which companies they choose to supply their ingredients and what happens to leftovers and unused parts of the food. 

Roughly 1.3 billion tons of edible food goes to waste each year, and some of this is surplus produce or produce considered too “cosmetically unfit” for sale. There are many companies nowadays that rescue these unwanted food items to keep them out of landfills, including Imperfect Foods and Misfits Market. Full Harvest, however, is slightly different in that it sells directly to food businesses, rather than consumers. 

The company first partnered with Two Good in December 2020 to make flavored yogurt using rescued fruits, including lemons. 

Along with Samuelsson, these companies are hoping that the new initiative will familiarize more chefs with the concept of rescued food items and get more of them using the method, educating consumers in the process.

Of food waste in general, Samuelsson noted that fighting it has to be “as easy and accessible for consumers as possible.” 

Apeel Unites Avocado Suppliers Through an Expanded Network Fighting Food Waste

Apeel Sciences announced today that more than 20 leading suppliers from the global avocado industry have joined its network in an effort to keep more food out of landfills. New partners from the U.S., Latin America, and Europe will use Apeel’s plant-based coating technology that extends the life of fruits and vegetables, according to a press release sent to The Spoon. Doing so will further reduce food waste at consumer-facing levels like retail and the home.

Apeel’s technology, which is a food-safe powder coating made from plant oils, acts as a barrier that keeps water and oxygen out of the produce items to which it is applied. While the company is working with a few different produce types, among them asparagus and citrus fruits — it’s best known for its avocado coating. Apeel-coated avocados can be found in major U.S. grocery stores. The company said today that in 2020, it kept roughly 5 million avocados out of the landfill, and promises “much greater impacts” in 2021.

Keeping food out of landfills isn’t just a matter of saving grocery retailers and consumers money (though that’s an important benefit). Food waste is a leading contributor to climate change, and produce is one of the most common types of foods to go to waste. Recently, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that 14 percent of the world’s food is lost between the harvest and retail stages of the supply chain.

Apeel’s technology builds time into that food supply chain by extending the shelf life of produce that’s in transit and, depending on the region it’s in, may not have the advantage of cold chain infrastructure to aid in the preservation process. And as CEO James Rogers told me last year, building this time into the supply chain allows produce to reach exporters before it goes bad. Meanwhile, joining Apeel’s network can mean greater access to retail markets for many suppliers. 

“[Food is] only valuable if the underlying infrastructure is there to make it valuable,” he said.

Among those suppliers joining the Apeel network are El Parque in Chile and Agricola Cerro Prieto in Peru. In the U.S., companies like Calavo, Del Monte, and West Pak have also joined the network.

Pani Launches Crowdfunding Campaign for Its Countertop Hydration System

What should we call Pani, the forthcoming hydration system that officially launched its crowdfunding campaign today?

It’s a water filter, because it removes bad stuff like chlorine and mercury from your tap water. It’s also a mineralizer, because it adds good stuff like calcium and potassium back into your water. But it also sports a pod system to infuse flavors and enhancement boosts into your water.

At the end of the day, Pani creator, Allen Tsai just wants to improve the water you’re drinking. Pani (the word) means “water” in Hindi, and Tsai was inspired to launch Pani (the company) in 2018 after spending time digging water wells in Nepal. Pani’s first product was an IoT water flow meter that tracked water usage. That product turned out to be more of a B2B play, but for this new hydration system, Tsai is focused on the consumer market.

In addition to filtering, mineralizing and flavoring water, the countertop Pani device also dispenses said water hot and cold, between 40 and 212 degrees Fahrenheit.

Pani is launching at a time of growth for the bottled water industry. Even soda giant PepsiCo got in on the action a few years back with its acquisition of SodaStream. So the timing is right to catch on with audiences that still want flavored/mineral water but don’t want to buy single-use bottles and contribute to the world’s huge plastic waste problem. In addition to eliminating the need for bottles, Pani’s flavor pods are multi-use and the plastic housing is reusable, so it avoids Keurig-like waste problems as well.

All of this, however, does not come cheap. Early Pani backers can buy a Pani for $199 (while limited supplies last). When it comes to retail in the Spring of 2022, a Pani will cost $399. That’s a lot for a single-use countertop device. It does however, offer more functionality than the Mitte, which just mineralizes water, or the Rocean, which only creates fizzy water.

In the end, the Pani is many things, now it just needs to see if it’s the right thing for consumers.

Video: Just Salad’s Sandra Noonan on Prioritizing Sustainability During a Pandemic

Start a conversation about sustainability in U.S. restaurants nowadays, and Just Salad will almost inevitably turn up in the talk. The New York City-based fast-casual chain has long been known for its efforts to make the restaurant experience a more environmentally responsible one, leading the charge on initiatives like reusable containers and carbon labels for menu items.

Like any other restaurant in the country, Just Salad, which now operates locations in several major cities, had to halt or restrict dining room service at all locations throughout 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. For some restaurants, this disruption might have also meant halting any sustainability initiatives. Just Salad had the good fortune to be able to do the opposite and increase its work of making the restaurant experience — in the dining room or off-premises — better for the planet.

“My focus was on navigating the pandemic with planetary as well as human health in mind,” Sandra Noonan, Just Salad’s Chief Sustainability Office, told me recently. 

Over a Zoom chat, Noonan and I discussed Just Salad’s sustainability work in 2020, including the chain’s new waste-free meal kits, the expansion of its famous reusable bowl program, and the complexities of bringing carbon labeling to restaurant menus. Our conversation, which you can watch in full below, also looks at sustainability issues and opportunities affecting the entire restaurant industry, including the concept circular delivery and the ever-growing trash problem plaguing today’s off-premises restaurant experience. Noonan also provided a wealth of insights and practical tips for restaurants looking to easily and affordable make their operations better for the planet and better for their budget in the process.

Watch the full video here:

Imperfect Foods Will Be a Net-Zero Carbon Company by 2030

Online grocer Imperfect Foods announced today its pledge to become a net-zero carbon operation by 2030. Via a press release sent to The Spoon, the company claims this timeline is 10 years ahead of most major retailers and 20 years ahead of the Paris Agreement Deadline.

Imperfect began as a service that rescued surplus fruits and veggies from supermarkets to sell at discounted prices to customers. A few successful fundraises later, the company is a full-fledged online grocer selling not just rescued produce but also meat, dairy, and pantry staples from other environmentally conscious companies.

To track its carbon footprint, Imperfect has partnered with Watershed, a software platform that measures a business’s carbon footprint across every touchpoint of its supply chain. Speaking in today’s press release, Imperfect said that through Watershed’s platform, the company can see which parts of its supply chain are emitting greenhouse gases and redesign operations based on that information.

Imperfect laid out a few steps for going net-zero carbon. It plans to have its first “zero-waste-to-landfill” facility operational by 2022, and a total of six such facilities operational by 2025. All six fulfillment centers will run off renewable power by 2026, and the company’s vehicle fleet will be electric by 2027. Finally, improving regional sourcing by 15 percent is a near-term goal, slated for 2022.

Imperfect’s announcement today is the latest in a string of recent stories about food companies’ various sustainability efforts, from Just Salad’s zero waste delivery aspirations to Burger King’s reusable cup program. Sweetgreen a chain that has pledged to go carbon neutral by 2027, is also using Watershed to track its carbon footprint.

There are also a few grocery-specific developments around sustainability of late. Kroger’s Zero Hunger/Zero Waste program addresses many sustainability issues, and Aldi says it will shift to sustainable packaging by 2025. Walmart, meanwhile, has a goal of reaching zero emissions by 2040.

For its part, Imperfect’s goal is to go beyond just sustainable food sourcing and “ensure [that] each internal process ladders up to an operationally net-zero carbon business model.”

 

UNEP: 931M Tons of Food Sold to Consumers Gets Wasted

A total of 931 million tons, or 17 percent, of food sold at consumer-facing levels was thrown out in 2019, according to a new report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and partner organization WRAP. This includes food sold to retail (e.g., the grocery store) and foodservice businesses, as well as consumer households.

The Food Waste Index 2021 report, released this week, examine’s the world’s progress on the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 12.3, which aims to halve per capita global food waste at retail and consumer levels.

In its own words, the Index 2021 report “sheds new light on the magnitude of food waste, and on the prevalence of household food waste on all continents, irrespective of country income levels.”

It also notes that until now, the scale of the world’s food waste problem hasn’t been fully understood. A previous 2011 estimate from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) famously found that one-third of all the world’s food goes to waste. However, researchers acknowledged “a lack of household food waste data outside of Europe and North America at the time of their estimate. Now, the Index 2021 suggests that consumer-level food waste is “more than twice the previous FAO estimate” and that it is found “to be broadly similar across country income groups. This deviates from the oft-told narrative that consumer-level food waste mainly happens in developed nations, while food production and transportation losses are the territory of developing countries. 

Mapping 152 food waste data points across 54 countries, the report also found:

  • Of the 931 million tons of food wasted at consumer levels, 61 percent came from households, 26 percent from foodservice, and 13 percent from retail. 
  • Roughly 8–10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions are associated with food not consumed.
  • A total of 690 million people worldwide were hungry in 2019, and that number is expected to rise.
  • Worldwide, 3 billion people “cannot afford a healthy diet.”

The report does more than simply highlight these rather bleak statistics. In an effort to support SDG 12.3, it also includes a methodology by which countries can measure their food waste at consumer-facing levels. “Countries using this methodology will generate strong evidence to guide a national strategy on food waste prevention, that is sufficiently sensitive to pick up changes in food waste over two- or four-year intervals, and that enables meaningful comparisons between countries globally.”

Reducing food waste can cut greenhouse gas emissions, lessen pollution, conserve land and other resources, and make food more available worldwide. The UNEP’s new analysis and methodology aims to do that by helping more countries around the world take actions driven by more and better data about food waste.

Shake Shack Is Trialing Biodegradable Cutlery and Straws

Shake Shack announced this week it is testing the use of biodegradable straws and cutlery at six of its 310 locations, according to Nation’s Restaurant News. Those items are now available at units in West Hollywood and Long Beach in California, Madison Square Park and West Village in NYC, and in Miami, Florida.

Manufactured by a California-based company called Restore Foodware, the utensils and straws are made from polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB), also known as AirCarbon. According to Restore parent company Newlight Technologies, PHB is in “almost all known life on Earth, from microorganisms and trees to the human body.” Restore gets its PHB from ocean microorganisms, cultivates it in tanks, then turns it into pellets that can be melted down and shaped into spoons, knives, and other utensils, just like plastic. 

Unlike plastic, PHB is biodegradable. Speaking to NRN, Newlight CEO Mark Herrema said the substance breaks down “just like leaves and stems do.”

Newlight launched its first commercial-scale production system for AirCarbon in 2019, and launched products in 2020. At the moment, it is making cutlery and straws under the Restore brand. These items are certified carbon negative by Carbon Trust and SCS Global.

At the moment, Shake Shack does not have a timeline on whether it plans to expand its pilot with Restore’s items to other locations. However, the mere fact that the chain is exploring this option is encouraging for the rest of the industry. The shift towards pickup and delivery orders has amplified the problem of packaging waste for restaurants. At the moment, however, smaller businesses are busy trying to keep their doors open and can’t be expected to champion packaging innovation at the same time.

Bigger brands are in a better position to do so (financially speaking), and recent efforts from the likes of McDonald’s, Burger King, Shake Shack, and others suggest the restaurant biz is now taking its packaging problem seriously. 

Kroger’s Zero Hunger/Zero Waste Foundation Is Taking Applications for Its Innovation Accelerator

Startups, take note. The Kroger Co. Zero Hunger | Zero Waste Foundation (aka, the “Foundation”) is now taking applications for the second cohort of its Innovation Fund. The program, done in partnership with Village Capital, looks for companies developing new technologies, processes, and other solutions that combat food waste.

The Foundation says this could include rescuing and upcycling “imperfect” food. “Upcycled food is the next frontier in recovering and repurposing food that may otherwise go to landfills,” the Foundation said in a statement this week. In this context, upcycling could mean either using discarded food to create new foods (e.g., upcycled cookies), ingredients, or even meal kits. The program also lumps food rescue — selling surplus food to consumers — as part of the upcycling process, too.

Both areas are becoming more popular in the U.S., with companies like Imperfect Foods, Misfits Market, Renewal Mill, and Goodfish leading the way. Imperfect was actually a part of the first cohort for the Innovation Fund, along with Food Forest, mobius, Replate, and others. About 400 startups applied for the first cohort, so we can expect as many if not more vying for a spot in this next installment of the program.

The six-month-long Kroger program includes one week of virtual programming followed by monthly cohort sessions. The entire program runs from late May through November 2021.

A total of 10 startups will be selected from the applicant pool. Selected companies each receive $100,000 in upfront seed grant funding, with the chance for an additional $100,000 grant based on “achievement of identified program milestones.” Virtual workshops that cover investment readiness and technical skill development, and also provides networking opportunities with mentors and potential investors.

Two startups of the chosen 10 will be picked at the end of six months to receive an additional $250,000 in funding.

Applications are open until April 1, 2021.

Could DS Smith’s “Greentote” Solve Grocery’s Plastic Bag Problem?

My online grocery shopping and curbside pickup with Walmart is pretty delightful except for one thing: all the plastic bags. I’m not sure if it’s corporate policy or what, but it seems like Walmart’s pick-and-pack employees give just about every item its own bag. The result is a ton of waste (and just as much guilt).

Perhaps Walmart should look into the Greentote, a new type of reusable and recyclable cardboard packaging from DS Smith. The Greentote is basically an open ended box, but, as the press announcement last week described, it is also “reusable, moisture-resistant, modular, 100% recyclable container made from renewable resources.”

The Greentote comes in two sizes, and DS Smith said it can hold more than three times the number of groceries than plastic bags. Plus, Greentotes can interlock with one another to ensure food safety during travel.

The press release didn’t say how much Greentotes cost, or whether they are strictly B2B or have a consumer sales component, but they are presumably more expensive than plastic bags. Unlike plastic bags, however, Greentotes, which are fully recyclable, won’t pile up in your home or end up in waterways. Additionally, a store opting to reuse Greentotes would also need to establish a new workflow to reincorporate returned boxes, rather than just dumping single-use bags into the world.

While cost will undoubtedly be a huge determining factor in adoption of recyclable containers like Greentote, Walmart, at least, seems to be admitting that it has a plastic bag problem. In a corporate blog post last week, Walmart announced nine winners of its “Beyond the Bag” innovation challenge and that Walmart Mexico y Centroamerica and one of its Vermont locations will go bagless (h/t Grocery Dive).

Hopefully these pilot programs prove successful, and my curbside pickup will feel a little less guilt-ridden.