Four Good Food Waste Stories to Kick Off 2026

Just six weeks into 2026, and we’re seeing some positive signals for food waste reduction. Even when it’s not obvious or clear in the data, there is action on food waste happening across the country. Here are some good food waste stories that came across our news feed:

• Food waste wins in the Mile High City, the Bay State, and at 30,000 feet. A city-led food waste reduction program for restaurants in Denver continues to prove it can help businesses reduce waste and operational costs—saving one recent participant an estimated $7,000 to $8,000 per year. In Massachusetts, food recovery organization Spoonfuls announced that toward the end of 2025, it recovered 182,000 pounds of food in a single week, enough to create 145,000 meals while keeping $358,000 of food out of landfills. Spoonfuls aims to recover more than seven million pounds of food in 2026. And United Airlines has introduced an economy class meal pre-ordering system for longer flights to better serve customers and reduce food waste.

• Outgoing New Jersey governor signs food waste reduction bill before leaving office. In early January, outgoing New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed a bill into law that encourages solid waste management districts to come up with plans to achieve a 50% reduction in food waste by 2035. The legislation also directs the state’s Department of Environmental Protection to establish a new tiered regulatory structure for compost facilities, which is supposed to remove long-standing regulatory barriers to creating new organics recycling infrastructure.

• Consumer demand for customizable portions creates a win-win-win situation for restaurants. Earlier this year, ReFED and Datassential released a new report that builds a case for restaurants to offer customizable portions to better serve customers and save money on wasted food. As Barbara Castiglia of Modern Restaurant Management writes, “It’s a win-win-win situation: consumers want customizable portions, and restaurant operators who make this change can both make money and reduce food waste.” ReFED Executive Director Sara Burnett adds, “GLP-1 users and Gen-Z stand out as the market segments that want portion customization the most as they are eating out more frequently, and the restaurant operators that cater to their desires will win business.” (ReFED recently hosted a virtual discussion with a panel of experts to dig into the business case for restaurants to offer customizable portions.)

• New report identifies opportunities to unlock capital and infrastructure for U.S. specialty crop small and mid-sized enterprises to support waste reduction from farm to fork. The Food Systems for the Future Institute recently released a white paper that identifies proven solutions and investable opportunities to strengthen the infrastructure that connects the U.S. specialty crop sector supply chain, which as it stands, is underfunded and contributes to food waste. According to the Executive Snapshot, “Drawing on data, interviews, and real-world examples, the paper identifies where capital can be catalytic, how policy can unlock markets, and what it will take to move from fragmented supply chains to resilient, inclusive food systems.”