Data & Insights

Leveraging Data & Insights

Whether it’s making operational changes to cut waste in your business, developing a strategy for funding a start-up with an innovative solution, determining the most effective policies to lead to systemwide action, or making any other decisions, trustworthy data is critical to understanding where to focus your efforts—and what the impacts will be.

That’s why data serves as the foundation for all that we do at ReFED. We're the definitive source for data and economic analysis about food waste, the solutions to fight it, and accessible methods for tracking progress—enabling the food system to move from acting on instinct to leveraging insights-driven strategies that drive real results.

insights engine

Starting with our 2016 Roadmap to Reduce U.S. Food Waste, we’ve earned a reputation for producing first-of-their-kind tools and resources to support decision-making. That includes the ReFED Insights Engine, an online repository featuring the most comprehensive information available about food waste in the United States. And we continue to set the pace for analysis with deep-dives into a range of critical topics.

The ReFED Insights Engine: Our Online Data and Solutions Center

Recognizing the need for a centralized, trusted repository of data on the extent and impact of food waste, ReFED developed and launched the Insights Engine in early 2021. Since then, it’s become an indispensable foundation for effective decision-making, serving as a knowledge and resource hub for food businesses, funders, policymakers, and more. Built with data from more than 80 public and proprietary sources, along with academic studies, expert interviews and more, the Insights Engine features six tools to help users understand the food waste landscape, learn which solutions are the most relevant for reaching specific impact goals, identify partners to help implement a food waste reduction initiative, develop a funding strategy, and explore applicable policies.

Explore the Insights Engine
accessible data

Making Data Accessible

ReFED Senior Frontend Software Engineer Erik Mudrak manages the development of the Insights Engine, which provides a granular and multi-faceted analysis of food waste as well as the solutions to reduce it. Erik’s challenge is to ensure that this resource is both easy to use and sophisticated enough for users to gain valuable insights. Erik says that his passion for working at ReFED is powered by his ability to leverage software engineering to do good at scale. “By making these digital products an intuitive and snappy experience, we accelerate key folks toward sustainability action,” he says. “And by gathering their feedback and continuously iterating, we provide better tools to educate and inspire.”

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Learn more about the Insights Engine—including how your anonymized data can make our food waste estimates even more accurate—by contacting:

Travis Wright

Vice President of Product

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Research

Understanding the food waste landscape is essential to knowing how to address the problem, because it reveals where, why, and how waste occurs across the entire food system. Different stages—such as farming, transportation, retail, and consumption—all have unique challenges and require tailored solutions. Without a clear picture of the causes and scale of waste at each point, efforts may be misdirected or ineffective. ReFED is working to characterize the food waste landscape, ensuring that interventions are targeted, efficient, and capable of delivering meaningful environmental, economic, and social benefits.

Research

Food Waste Landscape

Effectively tackling food waste requires a clear and comprehensive understanding of its scope, causes, and consequences, yet dependable data has often been limited and fragmented. ReFED’s research provides businesses, funders, policymakers, and other food system stakeholders with reliable data and evidence-based insights that they can depend on. Our work uncovers where waste occurs across the supply chain and identifies cost-saving and impactful opportunities to inform targeted interventions—equipping decision-makers with the knowledge needed to design effective policies, allocate resources strategically, and measure progress, ultimately driving systemic change toward a more efficient food system.

Launch Food Waste Monitor

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Learn more about our landscape research—and how to collaborate with us—by contacting:

Minerva Ringland

Senior Manager, Climate & Insights

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Research

Solutions Research

ReFED’s research on food waste solutions is helping businesses, funders, governments, and more make smarter decisions on where to focus their resources. Our analyses reveal the impacts of different interventions—from the amount of waste diverted to the net economic benefit, climate and environmental impacts, meal equivalents saved, jobs created, and more—providing data and evidence that supports the development of targeted strategies that are cost-effective, adaptable to specific contexts, and less likely to lead to unintended consequences. The results of our modeling of more than 40 food waste solutions can be accessed via the ReFED Insights Engine, and we are continuously gathering data to add more solutions to that number.

Explore Solutions Database

"Solving food waste begins with knowing how to do it. Our solutions research helps light the path from intention to impact, turning ideas into lasting change."

Asch Harwood

Vice President, Data & Insights, ReFED

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Learn more about how we analyze food waste solutions—and how your data can help—by contacting:

Ana Gomez Lemmen Meyer

Data Scientist

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Impact Studies

ReFED's impact studies provide evidence-based insights through focused deep-dives on specific topics. Our research includes analyzing trends at a particular moment in time, highlighting a unique dimension of impact, evaluating the effectiveness of a lever of change, and more—all to help key stakeholders across the food system build a deeper understanding of the food waste problem and the solutions landscape.
2025 ReFED U.S. Food Waste Report

Across the food system, nearly one third of all food is lost or wasted as it makes its way from farms to our plates. This report represents a landscape assessment, pulling together ReFED data analysis and modeling with external research, supported by qualitative narratives developed through our work with partners across the food waste ecosystem.

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The Methane Impact of Food Loss and Waste in the United States

Global climate leaders have zeroed in on methane reduction as a key “emergency brake” in the fight against climate change. Methane is a powerful and short-acting greenhouse gas that only persists in the atmosphere for 12 years. Therefore, reducing methane emissions now has a cooling effect that will be felt in just a decade or two—which is crucial for limiting near-term warming.

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