The Challenge
Food waste is taking up space in our landfills. When perfectly good food gets tossed in the garbage and rots, it produces methane gas – a greenhouse gas even more harmful than CO2. In fact, food waste accounts for 11 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Food waste is trashing bottom lines
In the United States, 30-40 percent of edible food is wasted, with 10 percent of that food waste occurring in supermarkets. All in all, 16 billion pounds of food is wasted per year at the retail level in America. That’s not the only thing being wasted – according to ReFed, food waste accounts for $37 billion per year in lost revenue. Wasted food from the retail sector is valued at about twice the amount of profit from food sales. This is causing unnecessary strain on grocer’s profit margins which are already slim.
If the environmental and economic incentives to address food waste aren’t enough – over 40 million people across the U.S. are expected to suffer from food insecurity in 2021 alone. Food waste must be addressed sooner rather than later.
The Answer? Individual changes and innovative solutions.
Shoppers are concerned about food waste too. Over 70 percent of shoppers say environmental factors impact their choice of retailers and products with regards to food and grocery. As the food waste movement gathers momentum, more shoppers are reducing their food waste by storing produce properly, planning their shopping trips to avoid over-buying, learning more about the differences between “expiration” and “best by” dates and adopting creative solutions for food scraps. It is more important than ever for grocers to meet the sustainability standards of their shoppers.
Grocers are also working hard to reduce their food waste by reducing the absolute emissions from their business, and by partnering with solutions like Flashfood, an app-based marketplace that connects consumers with discounted food nearing its best by date. This enables grocery retailers to sell surplus food and reduce their shrink along with their carbon footprint. Nineteen grocery retailers across the U.S. and Canada have already diverted close to 26 million pounds of food from landfills since partnering with Flashfood, and over two million shoppers have had the opportunity to eat fresh food more affordably.
AWG has a partnership with Flashfood and you can be a part of it. For more information, contact Flashfood’s Mitch Harrison at (902) 440-3424 or [email protected].
