REDUCING FOOD WASTE IS KEY IN BATTLE AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE CONTINUED...
SPECIAL REPORT
“Restaurant owners and chefs, when they’re told that climate change is a problem that they need to think about and invest in, it’s a difficult conversation,” said Rich. “We, as a community, have felt a lit- tle bit besieged by just the difficulty of all of it. “It’s so difficult to run a restau- rant already. They already barely make any money. It’s so much work. And to put the burden of addressing climate change on restaurateurs, it feels, I think, a little bit much.” And yet Rich, whose concepts include the zero-waste wine bar Rhodora in Brooklyn, is among those who believe restaurants need to think about changing their ways. Bringing the conversation of cli- mate change to the table as an in- dustry can give new meaning and motivation to the daily grind of the restaurant business, he contends. Consumers want it, and so do those who work in restaurants. “There are amazing things we can do, and things that we do do,” he said. And, fundamentally, if you’re working in an industry where nearly a quarter of greenhouse gas emis- sions are caused by food systems, Rich added, “then you are responsi- ble to think about what you can do, at least a little bit, to mitigate that.” THE BIG PICTURE Of course, restaurants are not the only culprits here. The challenge of methane-producing organic waste spans the food system, from farm- ers, to distributors, retailers, restau- rants and consumers. In the U.S. in 2022, an estimated 38% of the 235 million tons of food produced went unsold and uneat- en. That’s about 145 billion meals. About 15% of that came from food- service, according to ReFED, whose mission is to find data-driven solu- tions to food waste.
FOODWASTE BY THE NUMBERS Policy makers on the federal and state level have attempted to address the is- sue with legislation and goal setting. But even those in charge of implement- ing such policies say efforts have fallen far short. The Biden-Harris Administration, for example, earlier this year released the National Strategy for Reducing Food Loss and Waste and Recycling Or- ganics. The goal is to cut food loss and waste in half by 2030. That, however, was also a goal set in 2015. And the amount of wasted food actually increased between 2016 and 2022, though it began to level off in 2021, according to ReFED. WHERE SURPLUS FOOD OCCURS ACROSS THE SUPPLY CHAIN:
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RESTAURANT BUSINESS JANUARY 2025
PHOTO BY CHRISTINA GANDOLFO
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