ReFED hosts its annual Food Waste Solutions Summit to convene practitioners from across the food community under our “big tent” to advance our vision of a sustainable, resilient, and inclusive food system that makes the best use of the food we grow. This article series is designed to keep conversations from the Summit going throughout the year, and revisit some of the key themes and takeaways shared during the conference. To learn more about summit, visit summit.refed.org.

In 2023, food producers and businesses generated 21.5 million tons of food that went unsold or uneaten, equating to $108 billion in lost revenue. Motivations to reduce food loss and waste within business operations include environmental concerns like mitigating climate change or social considerations like addressing hunger, but more often than not, there needs to be a clear financial case to take action—and fortunately, there usually is. During the 2025 ReFED Food Waste Solutions Summit, we hosted a breakout session titled It Makes Cents: Building the Business Case for Reducing Food Loss and Waste, which featured business leaders who have successfully deployed cost-effective food waste reduction programs in their operations.

To dig into the lessons shared during this session, we caught up with ReFED’s David Ly, Senior Manager of Business Initiatives, who moderated the discussion, and one of the panelists, Rebecca Chesney, Director of Sustainability Innovation at Guckenheimer, the North American culinary division of the global workplace facilities management firm ISS. In 2024, Guckenheimer announced that it had achieved a 64 percent reduction in food waste from a 2022 baseline, making it the first major U.S. foodservice provider to cut food waste in half. As a result, the company earned the number one spot on the Humane World for Animals’ annual “Food Service Industry Protein Sustainability Scorecard”.

From these conversations, three key themes emerged for making the business case for food waste reduction.

Understand and align with the factors that drive decision-making

Crafting an effective business case for reducing food loss and waste requires understanding and aligning with the priorities that drive decision-making for an organization. Cross-functional buy-in is essential to implementing a food waste reduction strategy, and that means “giving people multiple ways in to be a champion for food waste,” according to Chesney.

At Guckenheimer, factors that drive decisions include creating delicious food, offering a variety of options, and providing a satisfying experience. “How can we achieve efficiency (as it relates to reducing food waste) and consistency in a way that enables variety and delight,” says Chesney. In the kitchen, this includes tapping into chefs' creativity for how to utilize the most from their ingredients, like repurposing trim waste, and reinforcing the connection to the bottom line. “You need to connect sustainability to core business metrics, like food and labor costs or diner delight,” explains Chesney.

For food waste reduction, Ly says that means “translating efforts into department-specific priorities such as cost reduction, operational efficiency, and brand value.” Chesney adds, “You need to understand how people are held accountable, and align your program to that.”

Prioritize and set up systems to track data

“Data is a helpful ingredient for building the business case for food waste reduction; it helps us see where we’re doing well and where we might improve,” notes Chesney. “If you are going to set a target, then you need to create a baseline and track towards it.”

At Guckenheimer, that means deploying waste tracking and analytics providers Winnow and Leanpath across their foodservice sites. And while tracking is important for all food items purchased, it’s especially important for the foods that are big line items on the “Profit and Loss” statement. “In an environment where the price of beef is only expected to increase, we want to make sure we aren’t wasting it,” says Chesney. “One way to look at food loss and waste is how we are managing the expense side. Beef is also a high-emissions item, so our plant-forward goal and carbon data inform our decisions as well. It's important to not use data in isolation.”

For those businesses that have yet to establish a data tracking system, starting with the commitment can be a good first step. “Vision enables action before data maturity,” notes Ly. He continues, “Organizations can begin with clear sustainability commitments and build the necessary data systems and key performance indicators (KPIs) over time to support and scale implementation.”

Make food waste reduction fit within existing workflows

“Streamlined systems can be the enabling piece—think about the space we have, the storage we have, think about labor—if something adds an additional hour or two of labor, over time that adds up,” says Chesney. “We exist to create delicious, beautifully presented food, while being good stewards of our clients’ resources; how do you make food waste reduction fit within that context?”

For foodservice, it’s about making sure that any interventions really build into the workflow of the kitchen. “Kitchens are efficient in the ways the team works, the ways training happens—it’s hard to take a super-efficient business and change all of these things at once, so solutions need to piggyback on what’s already in place.”

This leads Chesney to offer a piece of advice for food waste solution providers. “To the innovators out there, really understand the business you’re trying to help and how your solution can plug into existing operations.”

You can watch the recording of “It Makes Cents: Building the Business Case for Reducing Food Loss and Waste” below. To stay up-to-date on all of the latest ReFED Food Waste Solutions Summit news, sign up for our mailing list.

Image Credit: Guckenheimer, part of ISS North America