BALTIMORE, MD - Just yesterday, we received word that Flashfood released its latest report. The company’s second annual Impact Report, titled The Future of Food is Waste, was announced at the ReFED 2024 Food Waste Solutions Summit. The report features interviews with a variety of expert industry voices, a case study on SNAP EBT usage on Flashfood, and more.
“There’s a tendency for technology companies in an emerging industry to be framed as competitors, rather than collaborators,” said Nicholas Bertram, President and Chief Executive Officer. “The waste tech space is critical to the future of this planet, so I think that’s irresponsible. Our people and our climate depend on us to solve this problem. The aim of Flashfood’s annual impact report is not just to communicate our progress, but to offer research and insights the industry can benefit from, and to highlight other organizations we support. Through partnership I genuinely believe that the best days of humanity are ahead of us, not behind us, and I hope the industry can join me in this optimism.”
The thesis of the report states that we don’t need more food in our food system, we need less waste. According to a press release, there are 44 million people experiencing food insecurity in the United States, but we’re throwing away the equivalent of 145 billion meals annually. We only need 48 billion meals to feed 44 million people three meals a day for an entire calendar year.
Excerpts from interviews with expert voices across the industry underline the report’s position that a collaborative approach to solving this problem is the only option. This included insights from Noreen Springstead, President and CEO of Partnership for a Healthier America; Dana Gunders, Executive Director of ReFED; and Ben Kuethe Oaks, Vice President of Customer Solutions and Success at Divert.
According to a new survey of U.S. consumers conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of Flashfood, about half of Americans (52 percent) are paying more attention to coupons or sales or buying store brand products over the name brand (48 percent) as a result of rising grocery prices.
Today, fewer than one in 10 people in the U.S. eat the recommended amount of fruit and vegetables, the release continued. At the same time, we’re throwing away over 30 million tons per year. Flashfood is working to solve this problem with its No. 1 selling product: the mixed produce box.
We look forward to seeing how Flashfood continues to reduce food waste in the produce sphere.
