National strategy to reduce food loss and waste published

The author of this blog is Tori Oto, a policy advisor on food waste.

Nine years after setting the national goal to halve food loss and waste by 2030, the leadership of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are exploring ways for the federal government to achieve that goal through policy, funding, and research. NRDC submitted comments on the draft strategy, urging agencies to take a whole-of-government approach, implement stronger reporting mechanisms, and commit to leading by example in federal procurement and food loss and waste reduction practices (such as organic waste collection) in federal buildings. The final National Strategy to Reduce Food Loss and Waste and Recycle Organics, to be released in June 2024, includes many actions that, if effectively implemented, are on track to help achieve the national goal, but much work remains to be done.

We are particularly pleased with the following commitments in the final strategy:

• Leading by example: USDA and EPA have committed to promoting best practices for food waste prevention, food rescue, and food waste recycling at their headquarters and to explore further opportunities to expand these efforts to other federal buildings across the United States. EPA’s Green Procurement Program (EPP) will also review recommendations for federal procurement that help prevent food waste and may include these recommendations in its list of green products and services that all federal agencies must prioritize purchasing when they are available. Given the enormous size of federal facilities that purchase and manage food, including food waste reduction in EPA’s procurement recommendations could have significant impact.
• Consumer education and behavior change campaign: The National Strategy calls for the development, launch and implementation of a national consumer education and behavior change campaign to reduce food waste. This campaign will be research-based and build on previous efforts in the United States and around the world. The United Kingdom, South Korea and other countries have demonstrated that coordinated public campaigns to educate consumers about food waste reduction strategies can deliver direct savings to government agencies, businesses and consumers.
• Tutorials and other educational resources: The national strategy includes commitments by agencies to provide educational materials to farmers and insurance agents on gleaning (collecting unharvested food for donation), to educate businesses on liability protections for food donations, and to inform relevant parties of existing federal food safety regulations for processing food scraps into animal feed. These guidelines are essential to explaining and promoting these initiatives.
• Data on food losses and waste: EPA has committed to incorporating new data on food loss and waste into the Waste Reduction Model (WARM), which provides information on greenhouse gas emission reductions and economic impacts of materials management practices to assist waste management decision makers. EPA has also committed to developing a methane emissions savings calculator to help states and localities better quantify methane savings from reducing food waste.

In addition to these and other important commitments in the final national strategy, there is still much to be done. We believe the following actions could bring even more progress:

• National strategy: We are pleased that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is joining the interagency collaboration to reduce food loss and waste, and we hope that more agencies will follow suit in the future. Further commitments from these and other agencies to use their authority and resources to address food loss and waste will bring the country significantly closer to achieving the national goal.
• Date labels: Nearly 10% of consumer food waste is due to misinterpretation of date labels. Agencies received nearly 10,000 comments, including from NRDC, to address date labels. The final strategy included a commitment to continue supporting private efforts to standardize date label terminology and to consider this an issue for consumer education. We will continue to encourage agencies to incorporate date label education into their work.

The agencies are committing to reporting on progress toward the national goal of halving food loss and waste in EPA’s Environmental Report and annual U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks Inventory report. We had hoped the agencies would commit to an annual report on implementation of the strategy, but we are pleased to see food loss and waste included in these greenhouse gas inventories and reports. We need all hands on deck—including states, localities, nonprofits, and businesses—to make progress toward our national goal. NRDC and the Zero Food Waste Coalition will work with the agencies and partners to make further progress.

This blog provides general information, but not legal advice. If you need legal help, please contact an attorney in your state.