Meal kits became more popular during the pandemic, as many households opted for food delivery due to stay at home orders and preferences for maintaining social distancing. Do these kits also help reduce food waste? Dr. Brenna Ellison, Associate Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, provides insights based on her study with USDA on meal kits. Read more in the latest USDA food loss and waste blog.  

On July 2, 2021, Dr. Buzby, gave a presentation to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) workshop “Reducing Food Loss and Waste Along the Food Value Chain in APEC During and Post COVID-19 Pandemic.” This workshop shared best practices from the private and public sectors on reducing food loss and waste as part of capacity development for sustainable and resilient food systems in response to the pandemic. Dr. Buzby participated in the session on the “APEC Food Security Roadmap Towards 2030.” She highlighted the importance of public-private partnership in reducing food waste, such as the U.S. Food Loss and Waste 2030 Champions, a joint USDA-EPA initiative. 

The United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) recently endorsed a Voluntary Code of Conduct on Food Loss and Waste Reduction during its 42nd Session in June. This Code of Conduct (CoC) presents actions that countries, food supply chain actors, and other stakeholders can take to reduce food loss and waste (FLW) and outlines guiding principles for implementing these actions. For each stage of the food supply chain, the CoC presents a menu of actions to reduce FLW. For example, retailers could consider reducing prices on packaged perishable items approaching best-before and use-by dates, and unpackaged items that are close to the end of their shelf life. The Code of Conduct is now available at the FAO website.

EPA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Grants Application

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 2021-2022 SBIR Phase I solicitation is now open. Awards will be made for up to $100,000 to demonstrate the feasibility of developing and commercializing an innovative technology under a solicitation topic. Successful Phase I awardees are eligible to receive Phase II funding, up to $400,000 for two years, through an additional application process. Proposed topics for this year include sustainable materials management, including: Innovative technologies that help consumers prevent food waste in the acquisition, preparation, and storage of food, innovative technologies to improve the U.S. recycling system and more. Visit the program website to learn more and see details from a webinar.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is seeking applications for projects from states, Tribes, territories, and nonprofit organizations to help reduce food loss and waste and divert food waste from landfills by expanding anaerobic digester capacity in the United States. EPA anticipates awarding up to $2 million in total funding. Individual projects could be in the range of $50,000-$200,000 for the funding period of two years. Additional information is available on Grants.gov, under Funding Opportunity Announcement EPA-OLEM-ORCR-21-02. For more information on this opportunity, and to join the informational webinar (August 2, 2021, from 3:00-4:00 pm ET) visit the EPA Anaerobic Digestion Funding Opportunity webpage.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has launched its fourth annual survey of anaerobic digestion (AD) facilities in the U.S. that accept food waste to learn about their operations, biogas markets and other details. The information collected will assist the industry with tracking the development of AD over the years, as well as increase EPA’s ability to provide technical assistance for successful projects. The three reports issued to date can be viewed on EPA’s AD website. The 2021 survey was just launched by EPA’s Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery. There are three separate questionnaires for each of the different facility types: stand-alone, farm codigestion, and water resource recovery facility (WRRF) codigestion. All can be accessed at the same web link.