The Last Food Mile Conference: Food Loss and Food Waste in the U.S. Supply Chain

When: December 8-9, 2014

Where: University of Pennsylvania, Houston Hall: Class of 1949 Auditorium, 3417 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA

  • 133 billion lbs (31%) of available food is lost annually in the U.S. retail and consumer levels alone
  • $161 billion retail value for the annual food loss
  • 49 million Americans live in food-insecure households, including 16 million children
  • Wasted food squanders our resources: land, water, energy, nutrients, biodiversity, results in pollution and increased food costs

Sustainably feeding 7 billion people now and 9 billion by 2050 is a daunting challenge. Reducing massive amounts of food waste is critical toward building sustainable food security in the world.

In an era of growing demand for more food, coupled with escalating production and environmental cost, dwindling natural resources, and international unrest, tackling food wastage is paramount to our future.

Conference Features

Waste occurs at the farm, the processing plant, the store, and the home. This conference brought together experts from national and international, academic and industrial, public and private sectors, to discuss:

  • Where food losses occur along the food supply chain, why, and how much
  • What food waste reduction measures work effectively, lessons learned and barriers encountered
  • What policies and interventions are critically needed for moving forward

One Health

This event exemplifies the One Health initiative, which is dedicated to improving the lives of all species through the integration of human medicine, veterinary medicine, and environmental science.

 

 

 

School of Veterinary Medicine

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  • Publication
    Food Waste Composting on a Bahamas Resort: Barriers Encountered and Lessons Learned
    (2014-12-09) Sealey, Kathleen
    The ability for small islands to meet sustainability goals is exacerbated by the costs of transporting goods on, and then, wastes off the islands. At small scales, recycling can be prohibitive and complicated by labor costs; the need to profitably recycle and manage solid waste output from tourism is complicated by scale and available technologies. An on-going, multi-year study documents the amount of solid waste generated on Great Exuma, The Commonwealth of The Bahamas, since 2010 with benchmarking, then limited recycling of food waste generation by an all-inclusive resort, Sandals Emerald Bay. For the island of Exuma, the rapid increase in the rate of accumulation of solid waste associated with a large destination resort has led to an increase in pests such as rats and flies, along with an increased occurrence of fires associated with unburied solid waste. Solid waste has accumulated faster than the island solid waste management can absorb. Food waste composting is an ideal solution once challenges can be addressed; issues encountered included the limitations of physical space for food waste separation, the increased human resources and training required, the long-term corporate commitment and the requisite government oversight.
  • Publication
    Panel IV: Changing Behavior - Overview
    (2014-12-09) Kelly, Alan M
  • Publication
    Psychological Basis of Food Wasting Behavior
    (2014-12-09) Rozin, Paul
    Why do we waste food? One set of reasons is because it is so easy to do it. For most Americans, food is relatively cheap, and we are lazy. More importantly, we serve too much, so there are often leftovers. American portion sizes are much larger, than, for example, French portion sizes. A third, and perhaps the principal reason, is that there is something unsavory, for many people, about leftovers. They can be conceived of as “used” or “psychologically contaminated” food. Portion size and psychological contamination will be the focus of this presentation.
  • Publication
    Food Marketing: Impact on Consumer Purchasing and Food Discards
    (2014-12-09) Stanton, John
    Everyone shares some blame for food wastes but food processors and retailers have done more than their fair share. This talk will focus on sources of food waste by food industry and offer suggestions as what can be done to reduce the wastes. Three areas will be identified: farmers, food processors, and food retailers. In many cases the food industry will state that they are just responding to consumer desires so solutions involve collaboration between the two.
  • Publication
  • Publication
    Legal Issues, Food Labeling, and Policies Related to Food Recovery
    (2014-12-09) Civita, Nicole
    Food recovery – diverting unused and unsalable food from the waste stream and donating it for higher and better uses – is a straightforward, easily implemented, and elegant way to address the fundamentally irreconcilable problems of food waste and food insecurity. Unfortunately, many food businesses hesitate to engage in food recovery because they erroneously believe it to be fraught with legal, practical, and reputational risks. Fortunately, there are robust, easy to understand, and consistent legal protections designed to facilitate food recovery across the United States. The federal Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act exempts those who make good faith donations of food and grocery products to non-profit organizations that feed the hungry from liability for negligently caused harm arising from the consumption of properly donated food. With a bit of education about this law, as well as some basic planning and employee training, food businesses can safely, sustainably, and responsibly rescue wholesome food from its shameful fate in the landfill, recapture precious resources, and potentially access valuable federal and state tax benefits, all while helping to feed hungry people in their communities. To remain within the protections of the Bill Emerson Act, however, donors and recipients must comply with all applicable federal, state and local standards pertaining to food quality and labeling. Because the process of identifying specific standards that may pertain to recovered food can be daunting, the development and dissemination of legal informational resources is essential. For example, understanding the legal significance of food product dating, navigating local food codes, being aware of permitting requirements or prohibitions of feeding food waste to animals are all essential to the formation of mutually beneficial, collaborative relationships among food donors, recipients and regulators. For these reasons, the Food Recovery Project endeavors to both educate stakeholders on the legal dimensions of food recovery and advocate for strategic policy reforms that will further promote the widespread adoption of low-risk, high benefit food recovery programs.
  • Publication
  • Publication
    Global Food Loss and Food Waste and the Environmental Footprint
    (2014-12-08) Ekwall, Barbara
    Looking at the global context, the key-note speech will start by examining major trends in food security and nutrition and challenges ahead to feed a world of 9.2 billion people by 2050, 2.3 billion people more than today. It will look at urbanization, changing diets, rising middle class, natural resources and climate change. This is the context in which FAO is fulfilling its mandate to promote food security and nutrition for all, to preserve natural resources, and to promote economic development. Reducing food loss and waste is an integral part of efforts in view of achieving a zero hunger world. Every year, the world wastes or loses 1.3 billion metric tons of food, roughly one third of the globe’s food production. A short video developed by FAO will help better understand what food loss and waste means. The presentation will then examine food loss and waste from the perspective of food security and nutrition, its implications for the environment, and the economic impact. Food loss and waste is a complex issue. In a globalized world, the value chain for many food products is often very long and includes a great number of actors. The inter-dependence between the different links in this chain further contributes to the complexity: what happens at one point of the value chain can have a negative impact in other parts of the chain. The presentation will look at one case study developed by FAO, which examined loss and waste of maize in Kenya, which did show some unexpected results. It will highlight the importance of analysis and tools to design the response to food loss and waste in a coordinated and focused manner. Many of the actors along the value chain, from the farmer who cannot harvest to the consumer who throws away food into the waste bin, are part of the private sector or people acting in their individual capacity. Yet, the way society is organized will have an impact on their behavior. Food loss and waste is thus also a matter of policies, of development priorities, of education and sensitization. The presentation will examine the role of different stakeholders along the value chain and showcase some of their contributions to reducing food loss and waste. The presentation will argue that reducing food loss and waste is a low-hanging fruit that can make a considerable difference in reducing hunger and malnutrition, preserving the environment and contribute to economic development. In a world of limited resources, we not only need to produce more, we need to produce better and consume more intelligently.
  • Publication
    Overview of Food Loss in the United States
    (2014-12-08) Buzby, Jean
    The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service (ERS) estimates the amount, value, and calories of food loss at the retail and consumer levels in the United States. Food loss represents the edible amount of food, postharvest, that is available for human consumption but is not consumed for any reason. It includes cooking loss and natural shrinkage (e.g., moisture loss); loss from mold, pests, or inadequate climate control; and food waste. While ERS developed the Loss-Adjusted Food Availability (LAFA) data series to monitor food intake and diet quality, the food loss estimates have been used to inform the discussion of food loss and food waste. Using the LAFA data, ERS researchers calculated that in the United States, 31 percent—or 133 billion pounds—of the 430 billion pounds of the available food supply at the retail and consumer levels in 2010 went uneaten. The estimated value of this food loss was $161.6 billion using retail prices. ERS also estimated the calories associated with food loss: 141 trillion in 2010, or 1,249 calories per capita per day. The top three food groups in terms of share of total value of food loss are meat, poultry, and fish (30 percent); vegetables (19 percent); and dairy products (17 percent). In addition to presenting ERS’ estimates of food loss, Dr. Buzby will also provide the latest information on ERS’ efforts to improve the data and research on food loss, such as obtaining updated estimates of supermarket food loss estimates for fresh fruits, vegetables, meat, poultry, and seafood in the United States. She will also summarize findings from an ERS-sponsored National Academies workshop on the ERS’ Food Availability Data System (which contains the LAFA data series) and ERS’ food loss estimates.
  • Publication
    Panel I: Food Industry - Overview
    (2014-12-08) Galligan, David