This year’s ReFED Food Waste Solutions Summit was full of positive energy. Perhaps because this year is the 10-year anniversary of ReFED and its groundbreaking roadmap to reduce food waste (which we wrote about back in April here). Or because of the progress we’ve made over the last decade. Or the global economy and geopolitical environment making food waste ever more important. Or all of the above.
Leanpath has been a supporter of ReFED since the beginning, having pioneered the technology for food waste measurement and prevention more than two decades ago. We were there for the first Roadmap (and the current one), the first Summit (a mere 90 people!), and the ups and downs (e.g. COVID-19). We continue to serve on the ReFED Advisory Council, support the U.S. Food Waste Pact co-managed by ReFED and WWF, participate in pilots and share data and insights, and more.
To kick things off, we looked at where we are today. The latest US data shows 2.2% reduction in total surplus food (3.7% decrease per capita), a 5.7% decrease in Food Efficiency Rate in foodservice, and a 1.1% decrease in Unsold Food Rate in retail from 2023-2024. Yet uneaten food continues to have an outsized negative impact. From skyrocketing food prices to supply chain disruptions to changing diets and eating behaviors, we’re in the midst of “the great food system redesign,” according to ReFED President Dana Gunders. For the nexus issue of food waste, the business case has never been more clear.
To understand where we’re going, it’s important to understand where we came from. Which is why we were honored to share the mainstage with food waste luminaries from ReFED, longtime Leanpath customer Google, and BioCycle to talk about “A Decade of Impact: Celebrating Success and Charting the Path Forward” (watch the recording above). Ten years ago, food waste wasn’t always a safe topic to discuss, Leanpath CEO Andrew Shakman shared. Back then, we spent most of the time building fundamental understanding and awareness of the problem. Today, the conversation has shifted to solutions and how to prioritize them, thanks in large part to the Roadmap.
What were previously many disparate initiatives were stitched together into a cohesive national action plan, complete with economic and impact analyses, recalled Sarah Vared, original architect of the Roadmap and ReFED co-founder. Everyone was (and still is) passionate about their respective solutions, but the Roadmap brought them together in a cohesive, data-driven way and broke down silos, according to organics recycling legend Nora Goldstein, Editorial Chairperson and Principal of the BioCycle Group.
Google DeepMind technologist and ReFED Board Member Emily Ma reminded us of the importance of “operationalizing the intellectual” and on focusing on the highest and best use of food. Peer pressure, positive examples of companies getting credit for progress even when they fell short of goals, and a proven track record preventing 10 million pounds of food waste with Leanpath up to that point led Google to set a moonshot goal in 2022 of cutting food waste in half for every Googler by 2025 (five years earlier than most 50% reduction goals and against a later baseline).
Also at the Summit, ReFED released a new report outlining the innovative ways AI is being deployed across the food system to reduce waste, featuring Leanpath alongside other leading solutions. The report found that foodservice is uniquely well-suited for AI-driven waste reduction, the solutions are more robust than in any other sector, and the ROI is strong.
AI delivers on both fronts: measurement and prevention. At Leanpath, that starts with our AI-powered food waste trackers, which integrate scales, cameras, and computer vision so food is automatically photographed, identified, weighed, and logged. No manual entry required. From there, our generative AI-powered CoachBot goes beyond measurement to drive action. It analyzes kitchen waste data to surface the top items driving loss, prompts the kitchen manager to choose one and set a reduction goal, and delivers context-aware recommendations for how to get there.
In addition to the mainstage panel, we were honored to share the initial failures behind the success of our most recent product - Snap AI - during the Summit’s FailFest and to serve as a mentor in the Wildcard Speed Mentoring session. Because the road to success is paved with failure and we all benefit from showing our humility, vulnerability, and humanity (along with some humor), and ultimately learning from and lifting up one another.
As the ReFED Roadmap makes clear, the movement is “a big tent” - there is room for everyone and all solutions across the spectrum of prevention, recovery, and recycling. Forty-seven different solutions have been modeled for impact in ReFED’s Insights Engine. Any diversion of food away from landfills is a good thing. AND - it’s important to do our very best to follow the food waste hierarchy aka the wasted food scale which puts prevention as the most preferred option as it typically yields the biggest financial and environmental benefits