The Climate Collaborative is thrilled to release a new 10-step Food Waste Reduction Toolkit and self-assessment tool, both geared at supporting retailers in reducing their food waste impacts.

If the United States went shopping in your store, it would leave with five bags, drop two in the parking lot, and leave them there. This may seem crazy, but as a country, we leave a full 40 percent of our food uneaten. And it’s not just food going in the trash: Up to about one-fifth of U.S. cropland, fertilizers, and agricultural water go towards growing food that’s ultimately wasted. Food waste is responsible for at least 2.6 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions (equivalent to more than that of 37 million cars), and wasting less food was ranked third of 100 solutions to climate change by Project Drawdown.

Nature’s Path Foods is a family-run, passionately independent, sustainably-driven, delightfully nutritious organic breakfast and snack food company that believes in ‘always leaving the earth better than we found it’, and takes its approach to people, the planet and profit seriously.

Annie’s commitment to the environment dates back to 1989 when Annie Withey co-founded the company with a mission to nourish people and planet through honest foods. Since then, Annie’s has tackled various environmental issues and has prioritized climate change through policy, industry leadership, and most importantly, in their own supply chain.  

Shazi Visram, Chief Mom and Founder and Jessica Rolph, Founding Partner and former COO of Happy Family, have been deeply committed to sustainability since day one, embedding organic as a cornerstone of the company’s practices. About two years ago, however, Happy Family began to question whether they could go beyond their commitment to organic to do more to protect the planet- specifically addressing the challenge of climate change. The company created a full-time sustainability position to focus on climate change, ensuring that it could create the kind of future the company hopes to see for its customers, its staff and the planet. “As a baby food company, it’s imperative that we think about our impact on the environment, because we want our little customers to have a healthy, happy planet to grow and thrive on,” says Katie Clark, Happy Family’s Director of Sustainability.