A Heartfelt Call for Food Recovery
Food waste and food loss are pressing concerns that impact our environment, economy, and the communities we cherish. Companies and individuals waste money when food is wasted. The environment suffers when food is thrown into a landfill instead of being eaten. Forty-seven million people in the United States are experiencing food insecurity today because they do not have consistent access to food, while millions of pounds of perfectly good food are wasted. The cycle of wasting food can be corrected.
The movement to end food waste presents an opportunity for us to come together, reflect on our processes and habits, and explore how we can prevent waste while actively contributing to food recovery initiatives. We need to embrace food recovery strategies now, in our daily lives, because it is the right thing to do, it is the better thing to do, especially when the alternative is wasting money, resources, and dumping precious food when so many around us are suffering. We can all push for transformative changes within our food system within our county, state, and federal government. To push for that transformative change is not time-intensive, either!
When it comes to food waste in the United States, it is imperative that we work together to make food recovery the norm. It is going to take significant and small daily actions to make that happen. Please join me in taking some action now.
Creating Systemic Change Together
We must be advocates within our local communities and beyond—on federal, state, and county levels. Our voices will make a difference.1
1. Join local coalitions to ensure food recovery is included in local climate action plans.
I urge each of you to champion food system change. Engage with your local community to incorporate food recovery strategies into local climate action plans. Alarmingly, 38% of all food in the United States—237 million tons in 2023 alone—goes unsold or uneaten.
Integrating a food recovery plan is critical for any climate action initiative.2 The environmental toll of surplus food is significant; it involves the precious water used to grow it, the energy required for cooking and cooling, and the fuel needed for transportation.
Conduct an internet search to see if your county or town in which you live has a food recovery strategy as part of its strategic plan. You can search for their telephone number or email address. If your area has a recovery plan as part of the strategy, celebrate! Say thank you! Read the plan and see if it makes sense to you. If your area does not have a plan, you can ask when a food recovery plan will be incorporated into the strategy. If the person does not know, or they will not make changes to the strategy until the sunset of the current strategic plan, ask them to make a note that you would like a recovery plan to be considered.
2. Write your legislators to pass legislation that reduces food waste.
Advocating for federal legislation—like the Food Date Labeling Act—can be a powerful lever for systemic change. By implementing clear guidelines on food expiration, we can prevent large volumes of unnecessary food waste and create more opportunities for the reuse of food items. Reducing the confusion surrounding “expiration dates” means more food will be used effectively. Find your legislator and write to or call them, encouraging them to revisit the Food Date Labeling Act based on the recent public comment organized by the USDA. Remember, your elected officials want to hear from their constituents—you.
3. Help Food Recovery Network (FRN) expand chapters.
FRN harnesses the existing capacities of colleges and university students who have the ability to recover and move food to where it is needed. We connect our student leaders with farms, food businesses, and locations with food (event spaces, for example) that have precious surplus food. FRN equips our student leaders within the higher education institutions with the support, tools, mentorship, and training they need to establish food recovery operations in their local communities.
According to the EPA, better food procurement is the number one way to prevent food waste, and food recovery is number two. It's cost-effective, and it's just effective period. Our whole organization is built around increasing food recovery to be the norm through the power of college students. Our goal is simple: redirect surplus food from going to waste to feed people in our communities who need it the most.
Through our data-driven approach, FRN10X, we aim to expand our programs to locations with the greatest need for food access and the most opportunities for recovery. Said simply, we want to go to the places with the highest levels of food insecurity and the largest volumes of surplus food so we can move the food in those areas destined for landfill instead to the spaces where the food can be eaten.
When we replicate our model in these vital areas, we not only reduce food waste but also alleviate hunger and channel more resources, both human and financial, into local communities. Our approach enables us to feed more people faster.
By establishing habits and infrastructure for sharing and distributing food, we can build a resilient safety net in preparation for future challenges, and let’s be honest with ourselves, those future challenges are also the challenges of this very moment.
Find out if your alma mater has a chapter. If they do, support their efforts. If they don’t, reach out to a professor, an administrator, or friends you still have on campus. Put us in touch with that person, and we can help do the rest to launch a local chapter. Your word of mouth is powerful to ensure more food is recovered.
More than 200 chapters across the U.S.
A Personal Commitment to Change
1. Ask at every event—What will we do with our leftovers?
Leftovers are a natural part of celebrations. When we host a party, at large-scale events like conferences, reunions, we don’t want to run out of food. Celebrations are a natural place of high-quality abundance. By embracing this reality, we can ensure that high-quality food doesn’t go to waste at the end of the celebration, but instead serves those in our immediate communities who need it most. Make a plan for what to do. Food Recovery Network can help.
On a personal level, your commitment to food recovery can start with a simple yet profound question: “What will you do with the leftover food?” Each gathering, whether intimate or grand, offers us the chance to be mindful about our food use.
2. Hire Food Recovery Network
Make it your business to recover food by meeting corporate sustainability goals.
FRN’s Food Recovery Verified program helps large-scale events and businesses make a plan to donate high-quality food after events or as part of their regular business practice.
Our ongoing partnership with the Gaylord Resort and Convention Center in Washington, D.C., is a perfect example of the impact consistent event food recovery can have. FRN visits the Gaylord Resort every other week to pick up surplus food from events hosted at their location. Over the past year and a half, that’s meant 70,000+ pounds of food have made their way back into the extended DC community to feed families and individuals experiencing food insecurity. 70,000 pounds of food that didn’t get wasted.
And our recent Super Bowl tailgate celebration food recovery in New Orleans provided 12,348 pounds of high-quality food for the New Orleans Mission. That’s equivalent to nearly 11,000 meals.
3. Offer “to go” containers.
It’s simple: at every event and meeting, no matter the size, be sure to order takeout containers along with your plates and napkins. For smaller events, providing guests with containers to take home leftovers is an excellent way to reduce food waste. Bonus points if you avoid plastics and offer containers that can be composted later.
4. Make leftovers the celebration.
Lastly, normalize using leftover food. A friend of mine hosted a Black Friday party that encouraged people to bring their leftover turkey and desserts. Turkey was added to a crock pot with salsa and taco seasoning, and they were the start for delicious pulled turkey tacos. And of course, we all delighted in the desserts from other homes—half a pecan pie here, snickerdoodle cookies, bars, and buckeyes.
Your next potluck can be a leftovers potluck with the theme being - only bringing items that you need to use from your pantry and fridge.
Download Potluck Party Invitation
Take action today and tomorrow, and well into the future, to combat food waste and support food recovery initiatives in our communities. Start by making a personal commitment—whether it’s asking what will be done with leftovers at your next gathering, partnering with organizations like Food Recovery Network, or advocating for legislative changes. Each of us has the power to contribute to a more sustainable food system. Together, we can transform our collective efforts into meaningful change that reduces food waste and nourishes whole communities. Join the movement to make food recovery a priority, make food recovery the norm, and be a part of the solution. Your actions matter.