Let’s Talk About Food W te P ven on d Dive ion!

Preventing unnecessary food waste has many benefits, both to businesses such as Ashland Food Co-op and households such as yours. First and foremost, it saves money! The average U.S. household wastes 1,250 calories per person per day, or $1,500 worth of groceries for a four-person household each year! Furthermore, recovered food provides an additional source of nutritious food for those in need in our community. And it protects the environment and helps address the climate crisis, since when we waste food, we are also wasting all of the energy, water, and resources that went into producing that food and getting it into our kitchens.

At AFC we have a series of programs in place to address all of these opportunities to both avoid food waste and divert it from the solid waste stream towards better uses. These programs follow the Food Waste Recovery Hierarchy (shown at right).

Reducing food waste is the #1 personal action [you can take] to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while safeguarding critical natural resources. When food is wasted, it goes into a landfill. Once in a landfill, food waste breaks down and emits greenhouse gasses, including carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4). Methane is 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide, making it more damaging to the environment…. ²

Source Reduction is inherent in any food service business. The less food that is wasted, the less money wasted as well. The same is true for your food budget at home! (To learn tips you can use to avoid wasting food in your home, take the ReThink Food Waste Challenge.)

Next, AFC partners with Ashland Food Angels to help Feed Hungry People. The Food Angels collect approximately 28,000 pounds of food annually from AFC that would otherwise go to waste.

Produce and Prepared Foods

Departments’ trimmings and Juice Bar pulp are collected by Firebird Farms to Feed Animals on their farm located in the hills outside of Ashland. This accounts for over 100,000 gallons of feed that is diverted from landfill annually. Used co ee grounds and EcoTeas Yerba Maté are collected for Composting.

Home tip: If you would like to divert your own kitchen scraps to compost, check out Rogue Produce’s Community Composting Program.

The Ashland Food Co-op Team is proud to contribute to conserving resources, reducing emissions, and feeding the hungry in our community. For questions or comments about our ever evolving sustainability programs, please reach out at sustainability@ashlandfood.coop.

We’re all in this together, on Earth!

Chris Byrne AFC Sustainability Coordinator

1 https://fortune.com/2022/12/12/how-much-food-do-american s-waste-every-year-one-third/ 2 https://www.foodwastepreventionweek.com/learn