2025 Maine Wasted Food Solutions Summit
Friday, April 18, 2025
10am – 12pm
Post Summit Sharing
Summit Recording
PowerPoint Presentations
- Jeff Constantino, ReFED
- Megan Mansfield Pryor, Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation & the Future; Faith Lee, Resource Recycling Systems
- Brett Heidtke, Bristol Seafood
- Penny Jordon, Maine Farmers for Food Equity; Doug Clopp, Maine Farm and Sea Cooperative
- Don Morrison, Wayside Food Programs
- Allison Leavitt, Lisbon School District
- Eric Dyer, Readfield Transfer Station
- Food Rescue MAINE Student Presentations: Louis Rivet-Prefontaine, Megan Saudberlich, Kathryn Busko, William Brenneman
Zoom Chat
About the Summit
The Maine Wasted Food Solutions Summit is Maine’s statewide event focused on ending wasted food and food loss in our state through solutions that benefit everyone. The Summit brings together our state’s key food system participants: farms, businesses, feeding partners, community leaders, and nonprofit organizations – to discuss best and highest uses for our valuable Maine food resources at every stage… “Maine Food: Too Good To Waste.”
This year, we will specifically highlight the bottom-line economic benefits that Maine municipalities, schools, businesses, and households are achieving by simply remembering that food is always a valuable resource packed with energy and nutrients. It is never waste!
Participants are encouraged to bring questions and ideas to the summit. Q&A time will follow each presentation allowing attendees to gain further insights. The online group chat will also be open to encourage additional sharing and networking between participants.
2025 Summit Agenda
10:00AM – 10:40AM
I. Welcome and Keynotes
Welcome
- David Hart, Director, Sen. George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions
Acknowledgements
- Susanne Lee, Faculty Fellow, Sen. George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions;
Team Leader, Food Rescue MAINE
Keynotes
- Wasted Food & Food Loss – Stop the Waste
Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, Maine First District Representative
See how the waste of perfectly good and edible food is a problem affecting everyone especially with rising food prices. Learn about Congresswoman Pingree’s initiatives to stop the waste – and how her work will help your food budget. - Wasted Food and Food Loss Solutions – The Economic Benefits
Jeff Constantino, ReFED
Discover the proven financial benefits of taking action to reduce wasted food and food loss. Check out the latest proven business and household education resources to help you take action. - Maine Food Loss & Waste Generation Study 2024 – Gather the Data
Megan Mansfield Pryor, Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future
Faith Lee, Resource Recycling Systems
Explore the highlights from the first Maine Food Loss and Waste Generation Study showing what, where, and how, food loss and waste is happening in Maine. Learn how to use the data to put food to its best and highest uses.
10:40AM – 11:25AM
II. Maine Success Stories – Proven Solutions
Be inspired by Maine’s own businesses, schools, communities and organizations who are working to end food loss and waste and reaping the many financial benefits!
- Brett Heidtke, Bristol Seafood
Turning fish scrap “waste” streams into new product revenue streams - Penny Jordan, Maine Farmers for Food Equity and Doug Clopp, Maine Farm & Sea Cooperative
Using local farm surplus to develop value-added products that pay farms and food processors – and feed New Mainers - Don Morrison, Wayside Food Programs
Recovering truckloads of donated, good, edible surplus food to offset spending in Maine’s charitable food system - Allison Leavitt, Lisbon School District
“Feeding bodies, not landfills” with good, nutritious foods which saves money on food and trash disposal costs - Eric Dyer, Readfield Transfer Station
Operating a multi-community composting program offering lower-cost food scrap recycling for local communities and schools
11:25AM – 11:55AM
III. Food Rescue MAINE and Partners at Work – More Solutions
Discover how the Mitchell Center’s Food Rescue MAINE team brings together faculty and students to collaborate with partners across the state to develop solutions to Maine’s food waste challenges.
- Maine Surplus Food and the Charitable Food System
Louis Rivet-Prefontaine, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, UMaine - Maine Municipal Waste Programs: An Economic Analysis
Megan Sauberlich, Undergraduate student, Economics, UMaine - Maine Consumer Education
Kathryn Busko, Undergraduate student, Ecology & Environmental Sciences and Journalism, UMaine - Maine School Cafeteria Wasted Food Reduction Study
William Brenneman, Graduate student, Anthropology & Environmental Policy, UMaine
Join us and invite others for this statewide Summit to learn why and how to end wasted food and food loss – and build a stronger Maine – through proven food resource management solutions.
Food waste data is grim: 40% of food produced is never eaten, yet 1 in 8 Maine households suffer from food insecurity. Food is the single largest component of Maine’s solid waste system at 30%. And 97% of that waste ends up in landfills where it releases contaminants and produces methane gas—threatening our water and climate. Food waste also squanders valuable resources like energy, labor, soil, and nearly 25% of U.S. freshwater supplies which are used to produce food that is never eaten.
To contact us:
- Email: foodrescuemaine@maine.edu
- Phone: 207-581-3196