Food Waste Intelligence

On May 12, Leanpath Co-Founder and CEO Andrew Shakman delivered the closing keynote address at the 2022 ReFED Food Waste Conference. "Unfortunately," he states, "the scale of our movement does not yet match the scale of the food waste problem." Reflecting on 18 year of driving food waste change, Andrew identifies the limiting beliefs that are holding us back--and how we overcome them. Watch the video above or read the following transcript. After this fantastic conference, everyone should be armed and ready to drive change. And I hope ...

Hello everyone and happy Earth Day. I'm Andrew Shakman, Co-Founder and CEO Andrew Shakman. I have one simple thought and request for you as we collectively reflect today on the changes needed to sustain our planet. My request: please don’t underestimate the importance of food waste. When Earth Day was founded 52 years ago, food waste prevention was not a central concern. But this year, the newest report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change references food waste 125 times. And there’s a reason for that.

At Leanpath, tracking food waste on an hourly basis around the world, we’ve watched as COVID-19 has been felt across the global foodservice industry. As we’ve seen many operations forced to shut down abruptly, we’ve also seen an associated spike in food waste levels. We’ve had a unique vantage point from which to watch this set of adverse changes.

We’re very excited to celebrate Leanpath’s 15th birthday in 2019. While much has changed since 2004, we’ve remained dedicated to a single challenge: preventing food waste. And as we recently announced, we're currently preventing food waste at a rate of 1 pound every 2 seconds.

The momentum around food waste reduction continued throughout 2017. The high-profile documentary “Wasted!” debuted, adding celebrity chef voices to the effort. The Natural Resources Defense Council released a pair of comprehensive reports detailing food waste in major U.S cities. The World Wildlife Fund partnered with the hospitality industry to release the Hotel Kitchen toolkit designed to encourage the measurement of food waste, the establishment of food donation strategies, and the diversion of food waste from landfills. From the F...