Food Matters

A guide to using the suite of Food Matters tools and resources

Because cities are often responsible for waste management, land use, and local health and food regulations, they are on the front lines of reducing food waste.

Cities can be leading players in catalyzing innovation to reduce the amount of food going to waste.

Our compilation of NRDC-produced and other recommended resources supports cities as they implement policies and programs to reduce food waste.

The first step in reducing municipal food waste is data gathering: understanding the amounts and sources of wasted food at the local level, as well as the amounts and sources of surplus food that potentially could be rescued instead of wasted.

Tackling food waste involves the need for diverse strategies in a variety of policy and program areas, and communicating them effectively is essential to building community support for programs and policies aimed at reducing food waste.

Gaining a better understanding of the amounts and sources of wasted food, as well as the amounts and sources of surplus food that potentially could be rescued, is the ideal starting point for ensuring a successful city strategy to reduce food waste.

Cities engaging in food waste initiatives are increasingly interested in assessing how effective those initiatives are, in order to determine where to allocate current and future resources for food waste policies and programs.

Cities interested in reducing food waste should consider ways to involve business sectors in their efforts, particularly those sectors most often linked to higher food waste generation, such as food service.

Given the magnitude of consumer household food waste, cities can play an important role in both raising awareness and providing action-oriented strategies that consumers can implement in their homes to prevent food from being wasted in the first place.

Health departments, particularly health inspectors, are uniquely positioned to educate and inform food facilities about food waste reduction and food donation. In this guide, we outline some of the ways that health inspectors can help educate food facilities on how to prevent wasted food and donate surplus food.

Surveys can provide critical feedback on issues like satisfaction with the quality and cultural appropriateness of the food offered, barriers to accessing food support, and suggestions for making the city’s food rescue system more nimble, responsive, and reflective of community aspirations.

In many communities, there is a particularly acute need for donation of fresh fruits and vegetables and other farm-fresh products,and whether growers live in surrounding areas or are part of the growing “urban ag” movement, they can play an important role in addressing food insecurity.

This guide shares some of NRDC's key lessons learned and is accompanied by an array of additional tools to help cities conduct food rescue landscape assessments of their own.

Our assessment offers guidelines for cities to identify current capacity, key stakeholder feedback on the needs, opportunities, and barriers related to expanding food scrap recycling.

Making a public commitment to reduce food waste is an important way to harness city leadership and constituent buy-in. It also increases accountability and can inspire other cities.

Best practices for creating a city staff position dedicated to food waste reduction, cross-agency collaboration, work planning, and sourcing potential funding.

Addressing food waste requires sustained financial support, both public and private. Here are some tips for funding food scrap recycling and food rescue strategies at the city level.