In July, ReFED welcomed its first policy director to the team, a milestone for the organization and an indication of how far we have advanced since our launch in 2016. This new role highlights the importance of policy when it comes to solving food waste, and solidifies ReFED’s role as an important source of insights and data for policymakers to use.

Kumar Chandran has worked in food and nutrition policy for much of his professional career. His blend of experience at both nonprofits and federal agencies positions him well to build out ReFED’s policy strategy.

We recently sat down with Kumar to learn more about him and how he ended up where he is today. The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Can you briefly walk us through how you arrived in this role?

I’ve worked on food and nutrition policy for my professional career. I studied nutrition and public health in graduate school at Tufts University, which is where I decided to focus on the issue of access to healthy food for low income communities and policy solutions to address it. This has been the focus of my work to date.

My first job was at a small nonprofit in California advocating for state policy change around anti-hunger and healthy eating policies. From there, I moved to Washington, DC, where I worked at a national nonprofit doing similar policy work focused on anti-hunger initiatives. As a two-time presidential appointee working at USDA—first during the Obama administration and then during Biden’s term—I got to see first-hand how to make change on food and nutrition policy from inside a federal agency as opposed to as an advocate. In between those roles with USDA, I served as the first policy director at FoodCorps, which focuses on healthy eating in K-12 schools. That job gave me experience building out an organizational strategy around policy change, which positioned me well for this role.

What attracted you to ReFED? What interests you about food waste policy?

When my time was done at USDA after the Biden administration, I had this “What do I want to be when I grow up?” period. I really like working on nutrition and that aspect of food policy, so I was looking at jobs in that field, but I was also interested in broadening the scope of food policy issues I work on.

I came across ReFED’s Policy Director posting and it seemed interesting—an opportunity to stay within the food world but get exposure to other issues. After doing some research on the organization and food waste policy more generally, I liked the idea of joining an organization at such an exciting point of growth. And the food waste issue—while not one that I have worked directly on previously—is so important; it’s achievable, particularly in today’s world because it doesn’t have a strong partisan bias. I don’t think anyone opposes not wasting more food. It struck me as a great policy area to dive into.

Can you share a bit about what you will be doing in your role as ReFED's Policy Director?

Some areas I will be focused on include:

• Representing ReFED in the Zero Food Waste Coalition (which ReFED is a founding member), working with other partner organizations to advance our policy goals.

• Developing a strategy for how ReFED will go about achieving policy change.

• Figuring out how ReFED can leverage its network and existing relationships to create a cohesive voice to inform policy change—not only policies that ReFED thinks are important, but policies that constituents and people in the community think are important. ReFED can go out and talk to policymakers about the benefits of composting or an organic waste ban, but it’s a whole other thing to bring someone with you who is actually doing that work on the ground in a lawmaker’s district or state who can validate that as a constituent.

Why is food waste policy unique?

What I find unique about food waste policy is that people are interested in it for a variety of reasons; from an economic or operational efficiency perspective, or because they don’t want food to go to waste when people are food insecure, or from a land use and resource allocation perspective - why should we cut down more rainforests when we’re throwing food away?

There’s no lobby for food waste. These days, most issues, even ones you wouldn’t think, have some polarization or politicization of them. You don’t see this as much for food waste; it doesn’t make sense to truck good food to the landfill. Regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum, if a farmer has put a plant in the ground or cared for an animal, you shouldn’t waste it.

In this role, I’ll be focused on how we can bring in a coalition of voices to help demonstrate why food waste policy change is important.

What do you see as the biggest opportunities for policy to drive action on food loss and waste at both the state and federal-level? What should we keep our eye on?

With things like the Farm Bill and other major legislation stalled in Congress, I think it’s natural to say that state policy is a riper place for action, and I’d agree with this.

At the state level, I anticipate some movement on organic waste bans and food date labeling. With date labeling, there is the chance that action at the state level will trigger Congress to act (it’s important to note that the federal Food Date Labeling Act was reintroduced in July with bipartisan support in the House and the Senate). If a few states move forward on date labeling, you could have a situation where state “X” has one labeling regime and state “Y” has a different one. In other policy areas, this type of situation with differing state standards often results in the food industry being supportive of a national set of standards; this is something we are now seeing with date labeling.

State-level policy and federal policy can feed on each other, particularly on things like food date labeling, where there is an industry preference for consistency.

And even in times when passing new legislation at the federal level seems unlikely, it’s important to keep building momentum around the policy changes you’d like to see. Policy windows can open up unexpectedly, and you want to have laid the groundwork for legislators to take action in those moments.

What are you most looking forward to in your new role?

I am excited to learn about the food waste world—what the challenges are, who the key players are. I have enjoyed doing that so far, and look forward to continuing to meet new people and organizations.

Policy work by nature is about partnerships and building relationships. I’ve done that in the nutrition world, and now I can’t wait to do that here.

What was your favorite part of summer 2025?

In September, I’m running a half marathon in DC, and I’ve enjoyed training for that. Also, our family was able to escape the heat and humidity of DC for a couple of weeks to travel throughout the Northeast and Canada—and it was great to do those runs in more favorable weather conditions.

You can stay up-to-date on ReFED’s policy work by signing up for our mailing list. Curious to learn about other ReFED staff? Check out our recent staff profiles here and here.