As an ongoing part of ReFED's mission to accelerate solutions to food loss and waste and in recognition of the critical lever capital plays in achieving these ambitions, ReFED and XPRIZE co-hosted a “Moonshot Workshop” at Climate Week 2024. The event brought together 70+ participants to identify the most-pressing challenges for global food loss and waste reduction and explore how capital—including a potential XPRIZE challenge prize—can accelerate solution development. It was an intimate, powerhouse gathering of climate and food system thought leaders in research, solution development, business, philanthropy and investment, academia, and government, all with deep sector knowledge and a desire for collaborative and future-oriented problem-solving.

As a part of the workshop, participants collaborated to put together a short list of eight critical ideas for prize concepts that could become the focus of a future XPRIZE challenge focused on global food loss and waste. These include:

• Reducing Post Harvest Loss for Smallholder Farmers: There are an estimated 600 million smallholder farmers globally who produce about one-third of the world’s food. A considerable amount of the food they grow is lost. The winning team could develop a solution to reduce post harvest losses by 80% and cost no more than $50/year for farmers to implement.

• Hand-Picked Harvest: Significant food loss occurs on farms around the world. In the United States for example, ReFED estimates that 14.5 million tons of fruits and vegetables are left unharvested. The winning team could be the first to achieve a net positive outcome for farmers of hand-harvested crops (fruit and/or vegetables) that cuts crop loss and waste by 50% and optimizes for two of three impact pillars (financial, social, environmental).

• The Big Food Reconnect: According to the United Nation’s 2024 Food Waste Index, 60% of the world’s food waste comes from households. The winning team could reduce household food waste by 75% in 10 million homes across at least one rural town and one major city from two different countries, sustained for one year.

• Mission Measurement: As is the case around the world, ReFED estimates that 31% of all food in the United States goes unsold or uneaten, and there are major data gaps around why, where, and how much. The winning team could create a primary data collection solution for food waste in at least one layer of the food system, where the solution produces data that is actionable, scalable, easy to use, representative, and accurate.

• Waste to Worth: Hundreds of billions of meals are wasted every year around the world due to an imbalance between supply, demand, and scale. The winning team could divert waste from the landfill and other waste streams, while also creating commercial value for producers and consumers.

• Food for People, Not Landfills: Current global food production is enough to feed everyone on the planet, yet up to 40% of food is wasted and more than 730 million people face chronic hunger. The winning team could develop a solution to identify, track, and distribute surplus food across all channels to ensure it gets a proper home.

• Zero Food Waste: Every day, one billion meals are lost or wasted across the globe. In the United States, ReFED estimates that 85% of unsold or uneaten food goes to waste destinations. The winning team could divert 10 million tons of post-consumer food waste from disposal to beneficial end use in two markets (emerging and developed) in a year, with positive environmental, social, and health outcomes.

ReFED and XPRIZE are working on next steps to potentially bring a multi-million dollar prize concept to fruition, including convening a working group of experts to further develop and refine specific prize concepts so that a final selected concept can move into fundraising and prize design. In addition to the eight ideas listed above, participants also developed a number of other concepts that all have the potential to reduce food loss and waste and are ripe for funders and investors to explore further for potential funding opportunities. Each represents an opportunity for further development:

• Reduce costs and operational barriers to implementation of known food waste solutions (many of which ReFED has highlighted here)

• Execute a national consumer education campaign around overconsumption and strategies that reduce waste

• Improve logistics and reverse logistics throughout the supply chain in ways that reduce waste

• Establish a common language around food loss and waste reduction to better support apples to apples data collection, waste measurement, and solution implementation

• Improve food storage technologies and leverage existing technology for smallholder farmers

• Expand the capacity of nonprofit food banks and food recovery organizations through improved communication, logistics, and more sustainable (potentially earned revenue-based) business models

• Expand the development of non-edible, value-added products made from otherwise wasted food

• Research and develop the business case for the optimization of food portion sizes within restaurants and foodservice settings

• Incorporate aspects of nutritional density into waste and solution impact estimates

• Remove food loss and waste barriers within the agricultural sector by improving transparency and mitigating the risks of supply and demand mismatches, crop unpredictability, labor shortages, and traditional farm economics

• Scale standardized food date labeling policies and best practices

• Develop incentives for the adoption of food loss and waste solutions on farm

• Continue to improve shelf-life extension technologies and expand existing technology to new commodity categories

• Invest in further research to address the connection between methane and carbon emissions from food loss and waste

• Engage frontline workers to build a culture around wasting less within business operations

If you have any questions or feedback for the team, you can reach out to Alexandria Coari at [email protected]. To stay in-the-know on all things ReFED, sign up for our mailing list.