Faith and Food Waste: A Shared Commitment to Stewardship and Community

ReFED estimates that 70 million tons of surplus food—food that goes unsold or uneaten—is generated in the U.S. every year, even as millions of Americans face food insecurity. For many organizations working to address this disconnect, especially faith-led organizations, this paradox runs deeply counter to their core values.

As ReFED Executive Director Sara Burnett puts it, “One of the most basic needs in our communities is feeding and nourishing people, supported strongly by the innate connection between faith and the value of serving the community and meeting people’s needs.”

Across all faith traditions, two themes consistently emerge in conversations around food waste: caring for community and stewarding resources responsibly. “There’s a responsibility to share what’s been provided in abundance to our world,” Burnett notes.

These values create a natural yet often overlooked connection among faith, food waste, and hunger, presenting an opportunity to raise awareness of household food waste reduction through faith-based institutions. “Approximately 88 million Americans go to a house of worship in a typical week to listen to someone they agree with theologically preaching sacred text,” notes Gary Oppenheimer, founder and executive director of AmpleHarvest.org. “[The message about food waste] resonates—that will grab people, and that’s the type of message you’ll give to your kids.”

Faith traditions have long addressed waste and hunger

For Oppenheimer, the connection between faith and food waste reduction is not a new concept. Instead, it’s one that has existed for generations, even if it was not historically described in those terms.

Historically, teachings around feeding people and avoiding waste appear across many religious traditions:

• In the Book of Exodus, food provided to the Israelites in the wilderness was not to be wasted or hoarded.

• The story of Jesus feeding thousands of people appears in all four Gospels of the Bible, and in each account, the remaining food is gathered after the meal rather than discarded.

• In Islam, the Quran explicitly forbids the wasting of food, tying it to teachings around avoiding excess and waste in daily life (a concept known as israaf).

• Hindu traditions similarly emphasize respect for food and discouraging waste, with food often viewed as sacred and connected to broader ideas of gratitude, stewardship of the Earth’s resources, and care for others.

These values have always been there. What has changed is the scale and visibility of the waste in our modern food system.

The organizations translating faith-based values into action

As awareness of food waste has grown, many faith-based organizations have found new ways to connect longstanding teachings about stewardship and community care to today’s food systems challenges. Across the United States, these organizations are putting these principles into practice through food recovery, education, and advocacy efforts.

At Oppenheimer’s AmpleHarvest.org, home and community gardeners are connected with local food pantries so surplus produce can reach people facing food insecurity rather than going to waste. Additionally, Oppenheimer created an interfaith education program for clergy (as people of faith) called Faith Fights Food Waste to educate and enable faith leaders. The program gives faith specific food waste sermons and practical calls to action to help congregations better understand the connection between food waste, hunger, and stewardship through sermons, educational materials, and community conversations.

Other organizations focus directly on recovering surplus food. Society of St. Andrew works with volunteers, farmers, and food donors to glean surplus produce from gardens, farms, and farmers' markets and redistribute it to hunger relief organizations. Meanwhile, Bread for the World, a member of the Zero Food Waste Coalition, focuses primarily on policy advocacy around food insecurity and food systems issues.

Faith communities are uniquely positioned to influence household behavior

The connection between faith communities and food waste reduction extends beyond food recovery itself. It may also represent an opportunity to influence consumer behavior at scale which is a key driver of food waste in the United States. ReFED estimates that residential homes generate about 23.4 million tons of surplus food each year, accounting for about one-third of all food waste in the U.S.

Faith communities have a unique opportunity to support the food waste movement because they engage directly with individuals and families on a regular basis. Faith leaders are trusted voices, and many congregations already center discussions around care, responsibility, generosity, and community support.

As Jennifer Davis Sensenig, Director of Church Relations, and Meg Spears-Newsome, Director of Marketing and Communications, of Society of St. Andrew explain, “We believe that ending food waste and hunger is not only possible, it’s something we are called to do.” They continue: “Each gleaning event is a glimpse of God’s kingdom breaking through: strangers working side by side, abundant harvests shared freely, and neighbors fed with dignity.”

For Burnett, this influence on personal behavior may be one of the most important opportunities faith communities offer the food waste movement. “It’s not just about great food banks or networks of food recovery, but the influence on personal behaviors,” she explains. “That’s a huge unlock.”

Translating into a pathway toward food waste reduction

Taken together, faith is not separate from food waste work but is closely aligned with many of the values that already drive the movement. Across different faith traditions, the common themes of stewardship, community care, generosity, and reducing waste all create natural points of connection to food waste reduction efforts.

Faith communities are not the only pathway into food waste reduction, but they stand as one of the most meaningful and underutilized ways to engage millions of community members. For organizations working to reduce food waste, feed people, and encourage long-term behavior change, these communities represent both trusted messengers and longstanding infrastructure for community action.