Feed Your Body, Not the Trash Bin

Consumer food waste on scale

Sponsor: World Wildlife Fund

Team Members:

  • Susanne Lee, Faculty Fellow, Mitchell Center
  • William Brenneman, Graduate Student, UMaine

The World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) Food Waste Warrior (FWW) team is partnering with the Mitchell Center’s Food Rescue MAINE team to implement the Food Waste Warrior Program in four Title 1 schools across the Maine School District. The goal for this work is to partner with 3 elementary schools and 1 middle school and develop long-term solutions to reduce school food waste. According to a 2023 University of Maine study, “Approximately $5 million of edible food is wasted every school day in the U.S. In Maine schools, about three-quarters of the waste in school dumpsters is food. At the same time, Maine leads New England in food insecurity with 1 in 4 children at risk for hunger”. To combat the issue of food insecurity, the Maine Department of Education is supporting efforts to End Hunger by 2030 through the state-wide implementation of Universal School Meals, ensuring that every student has access to a free school breakfast and lunch. To combat school food waste and increase student nutrition, this project builds on previous efforts to reduce school food waste through the implementation of a variety of proven student-directed food waste interventions including share tables and education.

The goal of this project is to reduce school food waste volume, along with related social, economic and environmental measures like cost, student nutrition, and green house gas (GHG) emissions. while simultaneously improving nutrition intake. This project aims to provide insight into the opportunity to implement food waste reduction programs across Maine schools, aiming to develop a model program for school food waste reduction and nutrition improvement that will provide important economic, education, health, and climate benefits for students and the community. Daily food waste tracking and periodic food waste audits will be used to assess performance at each participating school.