ZFWC: Educating, advocating, and collaborating to prevent food waste
Committee meetings held 2nd Friday of the month from 1-2 pm PST on Teams.
Members are professionals working in the field.
Please contact the Office if you wish to join this committee.
The Zero Food Waste Committee (ZFWC) focuses on three areas:
Education – Organize and host webinars on topics related to zero food waste
Policy Analysis and Advocacy – Identify, analyze, and support legislation and policies that promote zero food waste;
On-the-Ground Organizing- Support efforts of community organizations and local jurisdictions to reduce food waste.
Educational Events and Webinars (Flyers) (YouTube PlayList)
| 2023 SB1383 Education & Outreach 10 Years of Public Policies and Initiatives Fighting Food Waste: Successes & Challenges Repurposing Recovered Food Corporate Grocery Stores & SB1383 |
2021 Surplus Food Recovery Costs Environmental Health Support to Surplus Food Recovery Funding Options for Surplus Food Recovery Zero Food Waste Forum Series Resource Guide & Strategies for Tracking and Reporting Surplus Food Recovery |
| 2022 Best Practices for Prepared Food Recovery Edible Food Recovery Capacity Analysis The Costs of Food Recovery Creating a Fair and Equitable Food Recovery Ecosystem |
2014 – 2020 2020: Fermenting Collaboration Across the Region to Assist Local Agencies to Meet Senate Bill 1383 Goals 2018: Second Zero Food Waste Forum 2014: First Ever Zero Food Waste Forum – World Food Day |
Policy Analysis and Advocacy
In 2014, with funding from StopWaste, the committee identified opportunities and barriers to recovering wasted food in Alameda County; NCRA published the results in: Commercial Food Waste Reduction in Alameda County. The ZFWC was awarded a grant from the Altamont Education Advisory Board in 2017 to help expand Alameda County’s capacity for wasted food reduction and recovery.
ZFWC members attended CalRecycle SB1383 regulatory language development meetings and provided useful input. ZFWC members continue to let CalRecycle know how they can improve and clarify SB1383.
On-the-Ground
ZFWC members have organized site visits to food recovery organizations as part of Recycling Update. Also mobilized NCRA volunteers to help at Bay Area food distribution events.
History
The Zero Food Waste Committee (ZFWC) established in 2015 as an ad hoc subcommittee of the Zero Waste Advocacy Committee following the first ever Zero Food Waste Forum, held in Berkeley, California, on World Food Day, October 16 2014, and attended by about 300 people from the US and overseas.
Forum speakers included Tristam Stuart, founder of the first Feeding the 5000 in the U.K.; Dana Gunders of the NRDC who wrote a widely distributed report called “Wasted: How America is Losing Up to 40 percent of its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill;” Jonathan Bloom, author of “American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of its Food;” and Robert Egger, founder of DC Central Kitchen and LA Kitchen, both of which train low-income adults for culinary careers, as well as use recycled food. There was a special presentation by Rob Greenfield, who rode his bike across the country, stopping in various cities making displays of food he found in dumpsters as well as a premier of the movie Just Eat It. Locals such as Sam Mogannam of Bi-Rite Market, spoke from a grocer’s perspective on food waste, and Cassie Bartholomew of Stop Waste, described how Alameda County is trying to lessen its food waste through prevention and donation. The Forum was sponsored by the Northern California Recycling Association, National Resources Defense Council and Food Shift. The Forum was followed by a Feeding the 5,000 via a DiscoSoup activity.
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