Wasted food makes up the largest percentage of any one material sent to landfills and incinerators each year in the United States. Wasted food is not just food that may go bad before you’ve had a chance to eat it. It includes food that perished en route to the supermarket, food preparation scraps, and wholesome food such as excess bakery and produce items that can be donated.
This guide explains how to conduct a food waste assessment. This information will provide businesses with the steps necessary to achieve a baseline measurement, which can be used to set goals and track progress. Consistently tracking food as it moves through a facility will help to reduce costs and target other wasted food prevention strategies. The EPA’s Wasted Food and Packaging Toolkit is a tool that allows flexibility for the user to track wasted food and related packaging generated at varying levels of detail on a daily or weekly basis.
Steps proposed to conduct food waste assessment are:
- Step 1: Develop Assessment Goals and Target Wasted Food Stream Components
- Step 2: Complete Pre-Assessment Questionnaire
- Step 3: Plan the Assessment Process
- Step 4: Identify and Accomplish Assessment Logistics
- Step 5: Conduct Assessment and Collect Data
- Step 6: Analyze and Report Results