Catalyzing Solutions to Food Waste and Addressing Environmental Injustice Through Community-Led Action: Heinz Family Foundation Names Dana Gunders and Sacoby Wilson Recipients of the 30th Heinz Awards for the Environment

PITTSBURGH, September 16, 2025 — The Heinz Family Foundation today named Dana Gunders and Sacoby M. Wilson, Ph.D., recipients of the prestigious 30^th Heinz Award for the Environment. As part of the accolade, Ms. Gunders and Dr. Wilson will each receive an unrestricted cash award of $250,000.

Dana Gunders has dedicated her career to catalyzing national awareness of the scale of food waste in the U.S. and to working with industry, policymakers and consumers to activate solutions. Her work is helping food businesses reduce waste in their operations, educating policymakers, and promoting the adoption of sustainable food system practices to reduce landfill waste and associated greenhouse gas emissions, along with the economic and social benefits associated with reducing food waste.

Ms. Gunders authored the 2012 groundbreaking report “Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill” while working as a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. In partnership with the Ad Council, she helped launch the Save The Food campaign, providing consumers with simple strategies to reduce waste in their own kitchens. She is president of ReFED, a national think tank that fosters data-informed action and works with food businesses, farmers, policymakers, researchers and funders to stop the systemwide problem of food waste.

ReFED’s most recent report, “From Surplus to Solutions: 2025 ReFED U.S. Food Waste Report,” assesses annual food waste in the U.S. — 73.9 million tons, equivalent to 31% of the national food supply.

“About one-third of food in the U.S. goes uneaten,” said Ms. Gunders. “That’s like leaving a grocery store with three bags, dropping one in the parking lot and never bothering to pick it up. Growing that uneaten food would take a farm bigger than California and New York states combined and would use an enormous amount of water, energy and other resources. That wasted food also leads to greenhouse gases exceeding the amount produced by 50 million cars each year.”

“Fortunately, taking action has immediate results. Food that we don’t waste today is food that does not go to landfills tomorrow and avoids the production of methane gases that would otherwise occur within months.”

Read the full announcement from The Heinz Awards.

Photo Credit: Joshua Franzos