U.S. EPA News Release:
EPA’s Food Recovery Challenge Awardees Showcase Ways to Tackle Largest Category of Waste in Landfills
Contact Information:
EPA Press Office (press@epa.gov) Tracy McIntosh, (212) 637-3633, mcintosh.tracy@epa.gov
NEW YORK (February 3, 2022) - Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recognizes notable achievements and innovations of 18 businesses and organizations that participated in EPA’s Food Recovery Challenge (FRC) in 2020 and 2021. During this reporting period, FRC partners prevented about 1.2 million tons of food from entering landfills or incinerators, saving $61.5 million in avoided landfill cost and reducing the amount of wasted food contributing to landfill emissions associated with climate change.
“The EPA Food Recovery Challenge Award winners demonstrate how preventing food waste and diverting excess wholesome food away from landfills and to people is important for the environment and for communities,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. “Their accomplishments serve as excellent examples to other companies, governments, organizations and communities, particularly because food is the single largest category of waste. We have an obligation to follow the lead of our award winners, not only for the sake of 35 million food-insecure Americans, but also to prevent emissions that contribute to climate change.”
Through the FRC, EPA has worked with organizations and businesses for the past decade to set data-driven goals, implement targeted strategies to reduce wasted food in their operations, and report results to compete for recognition. During 2019 and 2020, FRC national awardees implemented innovative approaches and engaged in practical, cost-effective actions and best practices to prevent and reduce wasted food. Best practices and innovations included school waste audits and custom pallet building to maintain flexibility for those picking up recovered food. Many national awardees provided much-needed food during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nearly 600 businesses, governments and organizations actively participated in the FRC in 2020-2021. Since the launch of the program in 2011, FRC partners prevented and diverted over 5.5 million tons of wasted food from entering landfills. In the most recent reporting cycle, FRC partners prevented or diverted about 1.2 million tons of food from entering landfills or incinerators, saving up to $61.5 million in avoided landfill tipping fees. Data-driven award recipients achieved the highest percentage increases in food waste diversion in their sector comparing year-to-year data. Narrative award winners achieved notable progress in the areas of source reduction, leadership, innovation, education and outreach, and endorsement of sustainable management of food.
Two awardees, Sodexo and Sprouts Farmers Market, are also U.S. Food Loss and Waste 2030 Champions, a group of businesses and organizations that have publicly committed to reduce food loss and waste by 50 percent in their own operations by the year 2030.
Another tier of the Food Recovery Challenge award is the Regional awards, which are given to partners who improved their waste prevention/diversion by 5% compared to the previous reporting year. Regional awards can be given to high-performing partners who were not already recognized with a National award.
The 2020-2021 FRC national award winners are:
2020 Data-Driven Awardees by Sector
- Restaurants and Food Service Providers - Chipotle of the Five Towns (Cedarhurst, N.Y.)
2020 Region 2 FRC awards:
- Rock and Wrap it Up! and some of its donors:
- Yankee Stadium
- Dig Inn
- Walls Bakery
- Finger Lakes Gaming and Racetrack
- Jumer’s Casino
- Westhampton Beach School District
- Crawford’s Coffee Bar & Café of the Five Towns
- Panera Bread of the Five Towns
- Animal Kingdom Production
- Aramark Coors Field
- “Mr. Robot” Production
- Silicon Valley Sports
- Warner Brothers
- Price Chopper/Market 32
- Wegmans Food Market
- Ravitz Family Markets Shoprite, Evesham Rd., Cherry Hill Supermarkets Inc.
- Ravitz Family Markets Shoprite, Cherry Hill Supermarkets Inc.
- Ravitz Family Markets Shoprite, Mount Laurel Supermarkets Inc.
- Ravitz Family Markets Price Rite Supermarkets Inc.
- Sodexo at Utica College
- St. John’s University
- Sprouts Farmers Market #945
- HelloFresh
2021 Data-Driven Awardees by Sector
Restaurants and Food Service Providers - HelloFresh US (New York City)
2021 Region 2 FRC Awards:
- Rock and Wrap it Up! and some of its donors:
- Costco of the Five Towns
- New York Yankees
- Universal Studios
- HelloFresh
- Wegmans Food Markets
- Sodexo at Le Moyne College
- Sodexo at Russell Sage College
- Ravitz Family Markets Shoprite, Evesham Rd., Cherry Hill Supermarkets Inc.
- Ravitz Family Markets Shoprite, Cherry Hill Supermarkets Inc.
- Ravitz Family Markets Shoprite, Mount Laurel Supermarkets Inc.
- Ravitz Family Markets, Price Rite Supermarkets, Inc.
- Ravitz Family Markets, Union Mill Rd, Mount Laurel Supermarkets Inc.
- Sodexo at St. Peter’s University
Background
Each year in the United States, 73 to 152 million metric tons of food is lost or wasted during all stages of the food supply chain (from primary production to consumption), according to the EPA’s November 2021 report, From Farm to Kitchen: The Environmental Impacts of U.S. Food Waste. Food waste adversely impacts the economy, communities, and the environment by wasting the resources used to grow and transport it. Preventing food waste and keeping food and other organics out of landfills mitigates climate change, as an estimated eight percent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from wasted food. At the same time, uneaten food contains enough calories to feed more than 150 million people each year, far more than the 35 million estimated food insecure Americans.
Best practices used by FRC awardees to reduce wasted food in their operations, in addition to actions taken by individuals and communities, keep wasted food from landfills. Their actions also bring the United States closer to meeting the re-aligned national goal with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal Target 12.3 to cut food loss and waste in half by 2030.
For more information on the Food Recovery Challenge national and regional award winners, visit
https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food/food-recovery-challenge-results-and-award-winners
For information on the national food loss and waste reduction goal, visit
Follow EPA Region 2 on Twitter at http://twitter.com/eparegion2 and visit our Facebook page, http://facebook.com/eparegion2
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