🍏 "Eliminating Food Waste"

Podcast’s Essential Bites:

[2:14] JR: "40% of the world's food is wasted each year, while almost a billion people go undernourished. And the emissions from wasted food add up to 8 to 10% of all human caused greenhouse gas emissions."

[5:09] DG: "At the highest level, we are facing a future in 2050, that the World Resources Institute, the United Nations and others have estimated we will need about 50% more food to feed the population than we have now. [...] We estimate that about 20 to 25% of that future need could be met by food that we are already producing, because we are over producing around the globe by about 1/3."

[6:48] DG: "Project Drawdown has actually ranked [decreasing food waste] the number one solution to climate change. Their estimate is that it could save 10 times more greenhouse gasses than converting the entire passenger fleet to electric vehicles."

[8:46] DG: "[ReFED is] a national nonprofit [...] and we are entirely dedicated to reducing the amount of food that goes to waste around the country. And we do that through providing data and insights on the topic, by working with investors and foundations on where they might invest and really catalyze those investments. [...] And then we act as a hub and connector."

[12:32] DG: "Similar to the recycling mantra of reduce, reuse, recycle, you can take a similar approach with food. First, let's not produce too much in the first place. [...] Only once you've done that [and] we have extra food, let's find a way for people to eat that and not have it go to waste. And then once we've done that and exhausted all opportunities, let's look at other solutions, like feeding animals, in some cases, composting and others, let's find a better way to use that than just simply sending it to the landfill."

[14:26] GQ: "[Too Good to Go] created a community of waste warriors that through technology connect, so that we can make sure that no food goes to waste. Basically, we help consumers connect with restaurants and retailers that have surplus food. And in that way, we make a very easy proposition for both consumers and for businesses to actually join our fight against food waste. [...] We've now saved over 147 million meals from going to trash. [...] We save two meals from going to the trash every second of the day. [...] Worldwide we have over 120,000 retailers [and] restaurants that have joined the fight against food waste."

[29:47] GQ: "10% of the waste that happens at the retail level comes from the label. So you can imagine the millions of pounds of food that goes wasted because of that."

[47:32] DG: "My magic wand would have every household and business in this country be both weighing and have an image component to their waste and have a smart meter approach. In South Korea they actually charge people to throw out their food waste by the pound. And I think right now it's so invisible to us. And so if we could really make it visible, manage what we measure, and have a financial incentive to reduce it, [...] we would just have that really direct fundamental incentive."

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