We’re just over a month into 2025, and already we’ve noticed some bright spots for reducing wasted food that we wanted to take time to highlight. It’s important to remember that while we may still have a long way to go to meet our 2030 Food Loss and Waste Reduction goal, progress is happening. Here are five examples:

• Walmart sells compost made from food waste, including its own: In late January, Denali announced that its ReCirculate^TM compost product is now being sold at over 100 Walmart locations across eight southern states, with plans to expand to more than 600 stores nationwide by April. In true closed-loop fashion, Denali also services Walmart locations with collection of food waste, which in turn is incorporated into its compost product. “We’re taking unsaleable merchandise and repurposing it into a different product we can sell on our shelves—benefitting our business, our customers, and the planet,” notes RJ Zanes, Walmart's VP of facility services. While Denali services thousands of retail locations, meaning it’s difficult to pinpoint if food waste from a specific generator went into a specific bag of compost, it’s still a great example of how big corporations can contribute to closing the loop and organics recycling.

• Divert donates 2.1 million pounds of food, processes 630 million pounds of unsold food: Divert, a circular economy company on a mission to prevent food from being wasted, processed more than 630 million pounds of unsold and non-donateable food into renewable energy in 2024, a 52% increase year-over-year. Importantly, the company also facilitated the donation of 2.1 million pounds of food last year, equivalent to more than 1.7 million meals. In addition, the company announced new locations for its processing facilities, and expansion in the customers they service, including warehouses, distribution centers, and manufacturing locations.

• Starbucks joins the U.S. Food Waste Pact: Early this month, the U.S. Food Waste Pact, a national voluntary agreement focused on reducing waste in the U.S. food system through precompetitive collaboration and data sharing, announced that Starbucks Coffee Company has become the second Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) to join the Pact. Starbucks is an industry leader when it comes to its donation program, FoodShare, which has diverted more than 75 million pounds of food from waste streams and donated more than 63 million meals since 2016. “By participating in the U.S. Food Waste Pact, we work with others in the industry to improve food waste reduction, both within Starbucks and across the sector,” says Kelly Goodejohn, Starbucks chief social impact officer.

• City of Phoenix, Mill, and R.City team up to tackle food waste: Late last month, Mill, the company behind the at-home food recycling smart device, announced a collaboration with the City of Phoenix and R.City to “make a dent in the $9.5 billion of wasted food that end up in Arizona landfills each year.” The partnership will enable Phoenix residents to sign up for a free trial of the Mill + R.City food recycling service, which includes the use of Mill’s food recycling system and monthly Food Grounds pick-ups. In addition, the City of Phoenix has undertaken the nation’s largest deployment of Mill food recyclers across local government buildings. “Phoenix is showing the country how food recycling can be simple and impactful,” notes Harry Tannenbaum, cofounder and president of Mill.

• Flashfood saves Loblaw customers $50 million in 2024: At the end of January, Flashfood, the marketplace that connects customers to great deals on surplus groceries, announced that Loblaw customers using the Flashfood app saved more than $50 million on groceries in 2024—and over $238 million in the past five years. Since their partnership with Flashfood began in 2018, Loblaw has diverted nearly 86 million pounds of potential food waste from landfill through the program. “This partnership allows us to offer incredible value to our customers while taking meaningful action to reduce food waste,” explains Jonathan Carroll, SVP, superstore operations at Loblaw. Flashfood is now available in 850 Loblaw grocery stores and franchise locations across Canada.

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