Food Waste Intelligence

Anthony Bourdain’s noble 2017 documentary, Wasted!, about the systemic blight of global food waste, is a welcome and high-profile spotlight. Reducing food waste is a moral and environmental imperative. We throw out hundreds of millions of tons of food while millions of people go hungry. That wasted food contributes tons of greenhouse gases to our atmosphere and leads to trillions of gallons of wasted water.

Hotel buffet lines are notorious waste generators. A recent study by Hyatt Regency Orlando found that guests were eating only about half of the food put out for them, and just 10 to 15 percent of the leftovers could be donated. The rest? Into the garbage with you!

LeanPath has been recognized by the World Resources Institute (WRI) as one of its “Friends of Champions,” a group of purpose-driven organizations working to halve global food waste by 2030.

As much as 41,000 tons of edible food that is presently wasted, or roughly 68 million meals, could be diverted to hunger programs across three of the largest cities in the United States, according to an ambitious, first-of-its-kind study from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

World Food Day is October 16. Leaders from the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization (UNFAO) will gather in Rome along with Agriculture Ministers from the G7 nations, leaders from the World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and Pope Francis to celebrate the occasion, which commemorates the 1945 founding of FAO as the overseer of global food security issues.