A few weeks ago, we celebrated the 10-year anniversary of a major milestone in the movement to reduce food waste in the U.S. The first-ever Roadmap to Reduce U.S. Food Waste by 20 Percent (aka “the Roadmap”) was published in 2016 by ReFED, complete with an economic analysis and breadth of solutions across the hierarchy of prevention, recovery, and recycling.

Before the Roadmap, awareness of the scale of the problem - both in the U.S. and globally - had begun to gain traction. A seminal academic paper published on the cover of Nature in 2011 identified reducing food waste as one of five key solutions to feeding a world of 10 billion people by 2050 while protecting the planet. Meanwhile, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations published a study that found roughly one-third of food produced for human consumption was being lost or wasted globally. The Natural Resources Defense Council also found 40% of food in the U.S. was being wasted. Jonathan Bloom had published American Wasteland, devoting an entire book to exploring how and why we waste food and what to do about it. Other food waste pioneers like the Waste and Resources Action Programme (known as WRAP) and Foodrise (formerly Feedback) in the UK and Leanpath already existed and were creating impact with early adopters, but this period of increased awareness sparked the collective action we’re proud to be part of today.

Fast forward to 2015. A group of philanthropists spearheaded by Betsy and Jesse Fink saw the need to dig deeper into this critical nexus food system issue and come up with a robust economic analysis and action plan. Throughout corporate sustainability, the need for data, insights, and a clear financial business case have always been integral to motivating action and tracking progress. The old adage “you can’t manage what you don’t measure” rings especially true for food waste, validated both by ReFED’s Roadmap and through Leanpath’s integrated tracking solutions that lead to measurable food waste reduction and cost savings.

Among the 27 solutions included in the original Roadmap, 12 were associated with prevention - comprising some of the most cost-effective actions with the biggest environmental benefits. More than 75 percent of the economic value was found to come from prevention, further supporting the longstanding food waste hierarchy (now the wasted food scale in the U.S.). It also found that restaurants and foodservice providers stood to gain the largest profit improvements by adopting waste tracking and analytics and smaller portions.

Leanpath’s CEO Andrew Shakman was part of the multi-stakeholder Advisory Council (a role he still holds today) who contributed to the Roadmap and was there the day it launched.

Encouraging progress has been made in the last decade since the original Roadmap was released. We’ve seen 1) Awareness of food waste grow and become a core sustainable food system issue; 2) Data and insights guiding better business decision-making and leading to cost savings; 3) Myriad multi-stakeholder, pre-competitive collaborations around solutions; 4) A U.S. national food waste reduction goal of 50 percent by 2030 aligned with global UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12.3 and a U.S. Food Waste Pact with signatories representing the majority of the foodservice and retail industries; and 5) Federal, state, and local policies that ban sending food to landfill, standardize date labeling, incentivize food rescue, and connect to broader climate and waste goals.

In that time, Leanpath has grown to more than 4,600 deployments in around 50 countries. We surpassed our 123 Pledge goal last year, saving 65 million meals from being wasted in two and half years alone. ReFED has since published an updated Roadmap to 2030 and an accompanying Insights Engine to help achieve the US and global goals of halving food waste by 2030.

The latest Roadmap calls for an investment of $16 billion across 40+ solutions to reduce food waste by 20 million tons annually. Over half of the investment ($11 billion) is needed from the private sector, with an expected return of 3:1. In foodservice specifically, waste tracking continues to show the biggest financial benefit. Five out of seven key action areas - supported by a range of solutions and levers - have to do with prevention, including improving product and menu management and planning, maximizing food utilization, and reshaping consumer environments.

It’s important to celebrate our progress, but not to stop there. Despite the increased awareness and initiatives over the last decade, recent data shows food waste overall remains unacceptably high - especially in retail and residential settings - and we are collectively still far off from reaching a 50 percent reduction by 2030. The U.S. Food Waste Pact reported an improved food efficiency rate in foodservice (3.99%, -5.7% from 2023 to 2024) and a marginally improved unsold food rate in retail (2.9%, -1.1% from 2023 to 2024). While tons and cost of unsold food were down in foodservice, they were up in retail (+4.8% and +2%, respectively). The residential sector - responsible for more than a third of food wasted - also needs more investment in awareness, infrastructure, culture and behavior change, and other solutions.

The good news is food waste is a solvable problem with a clear roadmap. The solutions are there and addressing food waste also helps address the climate crisis and food security. Looking ahead, we need to 1) Invest in and scale proven solutions; 2) Leveraging AI and digital technology to improve measurement, operational efficiency, and data quality, and sync across enterprises; 3) Pool resources and streamline efforts to focus on prevention and solutions that can be readily deployed, reduce the most waste, and/or have the greatest return on investment; 4) Support public policies that incentivize food waste prevention, landfill diversion, and innovation; and 5) Last but not least, make food waste culturally unacceptable and reduction the norm in how our food system operates.

Contact us to learn more about our food waste tracking and prevention solutions.