The Covid-19 pandemic made America’s food-waste problem worse, dramatically so in some cases, forcing the food sector to adapt and find creative ways to limit waste, according to an online panel discussion Tuesday hosted by ReFED, a nonprofit focused on ending waste across the food system.
Before the pandemic, as much as 40 percent of all food in the United States was wasted each year. Over the last two years, though, it has become even harder to prevent waste due to labor shortages, changes in consumer demand and a shortage of truck drivers that has hampered distribution.
ReFED said last year that the full extent of how much more food is being wasted is not yet clear, but that early estimates and anecdotes about farmers dumping milk and plowing under vegetables suggested that it was significant.
“The pandemic really reshaped our supply chains,” said Linda Dunn, a supply chain management expert at Georgetown University who was on the panel. In the food supply chain, specifically, it created “this imbalance, we had swings both on the demand side and on the supply side.”
Restaurants closed due to Covid restrictions no longer needed their regular orders, so fruits and vegetables rotted. Cargo ships backed up at undermanned ports were unable to offload, causing more spoiled food. There was a sudden increase in demand for foods commonly eaten at home, like cereal, and a decrease in demand for seafood and other products that people typically eat at restaurants, Dunn said.
The shifts were “hard to react to quickly,” she said, due to the complex, rigid nature of the global food supply chain. Dunn advised that restaurants, the healthcare system, and anyone that deals with food should take the time to make a contingency plan for any future constraints on the supply chain. Many skip that step to save money, but she said it will pay off.
But as the panelists made clear, restaurants, distributors and other stakeholders did find ways to lessen the impact of the crisis.
Dana Yost, COO of Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona, said his organization began making boxes of produce and other items that people could grab and go. Restaurants started using QR codes instead of paper menus that allowed them to quickly change the menu week to week based on ingredient availability. Eric Woods, a vice president at Sysco Corp., one of the leading food distributors, said his company created a truck driver training program to address the driver shortage, which hit an historic high of 80,000 during the pandemic and is expected to double by 2030. Imperfect Foods, a weekly grocery delivery service, arranged to salvage and sell cheese trays from idled airlines and popcorn from empty movie theaters.
In February, Sysco joined the U.S. Food Loss and Waste 2030 Champions, a group of companies committed to reducing food waste. The group is part of the national effort, launched in 2015 by the USDA and the EPA, to cut U.S. food waste in half by 2030. Last year, as part of the effort, the USDA allocated $2 million for local governments to pilot compost and food waste programs.
The problem is not confined to the United States. Globally, food waste rates are around 30 percent, on average.
Food is the most common item sent to landfills in this country, accounting for nearly a quarter of landfill waste. Once in the landfill, the food decomposes, releasing methane, a greenhouse gas that is short-lived but 86 times more potent than carbon dioxide. The impact is significant: Emissions from food waste are equivalent to 42 coal-fired plants.
“If you look at the environmental impacts, the world has to do better,” said Sysco’s Woods.