Food Waste Intelligence

Closing out a year with increasing focus on the importance of food waste reduction, the U.S. released its Draft National Strategy for Reducing Food Loss and Waste and Recycling Organics in early December. Release of the Draft National Strategy is significant, and in fact long overdue, as the U.S. committed to halving food loss and waste reduction in support of Target 12.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) back in 2015 – and a united, measurement-focused strategy is needed to get the U.S. on the proper pathway with urgency.

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.