Pilot 4: Annual Maine Home Food Waste Challenge 2023

August 4, 2023 Solution 1 Pilot

The Maine Home Food Waste Challenge was a four-week online household food waste reduction “competition” which launched on January 9th, 2023. Maine residents and communities statewide were asked to track, measure, and reduce their weekly food waste in order to save money and help prevent climate change. Using social media, newspapers, TV, and community outreach, we signed up 84 participants from all over the state.

Project Goals

  1. To develop basic Maine household food waste data.
  2. To reduce household food waste costs and volume.
  3. To increase food waste education for Maine residents.
  4. To develop a simple, fast, and easy system for tracking & measuring household food waste.

Methodology 

  1. Completed literature research and conducted peer network interviews to understand household food waste tracking and measuring (“challenge”) program best practices.
  2. Launched the first annual Maine Home Food Waste Challenge to start with the new year.
  3. Created a Food Rescue MAINE web sign-up form for the Challenge to register participants and collect key demographic and food waste behavior and attitude data.
  4. Provided Challenge participants with instructions and a Printable daily food waste data tracking sheet to help track household food waste data.
  5. Posted weekly Challenge “Leaderboards” for participants to track their progress and receive awards (e.g. lowest food waste, highest reduction, longest streak).
  6. After four weeks, Challenge category winners were selected and posted on Leaderboard.
  7. A post-challenge survey and focus groups were used to collect Challenge feedback

Results 

  • The average participant’s household food waste reduction was nearly 20%.
  • The highest total household food waste reduction was 83%.
  • The number of participants with the longest “streaks” – Week 4 (19) and Week 3 (5) = 28% of total participants.
  • “To help mitigate climate change” was the largest motivation for participation (+50%).
  • Bar Harbor (14%) and Waterville (7%) had the highest participation by zip code.
  • A majority of participants were over the age of 60 (61.9%).
  • The largest participation by income was $100,000+ (31.8%).

Resources 

Week 4 Leaderboard

2023 Maine Home Food Waste Challenge Week 4 Leaderboard.