Food Waste Intelligence

Earlier this month, the US EPA’s food recovery hierarchy, the upside downtriangle which has guided food waste reduction efforts since the 1990s, got a makeover.

And that’s a good thing, as it reflects the continued evolution of research and elevation of activity on food waste reduction.

Leanpath CEO Andrew Shakman has been named one of this year’s Meaningful Business 100, among a global group of leaders combining profit and purpose to tackle the world’s most pressing issues.

The 5th edition of the award recognizes social entrepreneurs, corporate leaders and impact investors whose work supports the UN Global Goals; in Leanpath’s case, Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 to halve global food waste by 2030.

In December of 2019, the United Nations General Assembly designated September 29 as the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste. UN leaders sought to raise awareness of the scope and scale of the global food waste challenge to speed progress toward Target 12.3 – the global goal of halving food waste by 2030.

As we celebrate the fourth annual observance this week, we remain excited by the fact that food loss and waste is now explicitly recognized on the UN calendar – and we believe this date is only growing in importance.

Leanpath CEO and Co-Founder Andrew Shakman sat down with Sharon Cittone for her FoodTech Junkies podcast, taking a dive into Leanpath's history, the state of the food waste movement and what Andrew sees as the road ahead.

"We began on a journey to fight food waste in 2004, not knowing what that journey was going to look like and frankly how exciting it would be to see an entire movement build around that."

Get a glimpse into the past and future of the food waste movement in foodservice in this 30-minute podcast here.

At Leanpath we have long recognized the connection between food waste and climate change.  That critical connection is foundational to our mission of making food waste prevention and measurement everyday practice in the world’s kitchens. 

The food waste-climate connection has been amplified by many organizations.  For example, the UNFAO famouslynoted years ago that if ranked as a country, food waste would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions behind the U.S. and China. The World Wildlife Fund recentlyfound that global food wastage accounts for up to 10% of global emissions. And the Project Drawdown teamcited food waste reduction as one of the top solutions to climate change.

In addition, UK-basedWRAP highlighted a critical point in a recent report (Food Loss and Waste: From Commitments to Action) that bears repeating: We cannot achieve net zero emissions without tackling food loss and waste. 

We are all seeing signs of emissions-driven climate change around the world in recent weeks in the form of record temperatures, drought, fires, and floods, and we think it is important to highlight stories reflecting those signals.