As food waste has become a mounting problem for our generation, lots of pressure has come upon supermarkets to put more effort into reducing their food waste. However, many supermarkets all around the United States, have not taken any actions to reduce their food waste, which is cause for a lot of concern. With 40 percent of the food being wasted in the United States being due to businesses that serve and provide food, only a few have taken any noticeable actions to cut down on the amount of food they have wasted. Today, we will be going over supermarkets all over the country and analyzing their effort to reduce food waste.
Walmart is among the leading supermarkets to take action against food waste. As they are the largest retailer in the United States, it is good to hear that they have committed themselves to go zero waste by 2025. In order to do this, the retail giant has employed 3 main tactics: prevention, recovery, and recycling. In the coming years, they plan on developing a method by which they stop food waste from happening. This includes incorporating more advanced measuring tools into their business and creating more ways to prevent food waste. Furthermore, they have decided to give away more food to people. Their plan includes experimenting with different programs that put an emphasis on food recovery and giving away perishable food and then making the ones that work widespread across the country. Finally, they hope to start utilizing food recycling more often. By doing this, they will use food on the verge of being wasted, for more innovative purposes such as energy and helping out in agriculture.
Whole Foods is among companies who have dedicated less effort to reduce food waste, but they have laid out a plan to use strategies by which they will reduce food wastage in their stores. One method of doing so is their dedication to composting. By doing this, some of their stores hope to reduce the amount of food that goes to landfills, and instead use that food for a better purpose. Additionally, Whole Foods has made an effort to train its employees to order smartly. Using this plan, they hope that employees will order the right amount of food for their store to reduce the amount of food that they have leftover. If they do happen to have leftover food, Whole Foods has partnered with local food banks and food rescue agencies to donate their leftover food, perishable and nonperishable. This program has allowed Whole Foods to donate millions of pounds of food every year and help the environment.
Although Trader Joe’s hasn’t been very public about their efforts to reduce food wastage, they have a very impressive system set in place at stores across the country, which donates 100 percent of the food that can no longer be sold. Every Trader Joe’s store has a designated donation coordinator who makes sure that all food that cannot be sold anymore is donated to local food banks and food rescue agencies. Moreover, Trader Joe’s has made sure that every employee is well educated on what foods should be donated so that when the time comes, they can act appropriately. Not only does Trader Joe’s make sure that they reduce food wastage in their store, but they also make it easy upon the food banks to who they are donating their food. Employees are instructed on what temperatures to store foods at before they donate food, and separate and organize the foods that they are donating to make the process easier for food banks.
Though a few supermarkets around the United States have made an effort to reduce their food wastage, there are a lot more who still need to take action. It is our job to help the environment and thus, we should try our best to inform others on what steps they should take to reduce the amount of food that they waste.
