Grocery giant achieves stunning success with new policy that turns trash into treasure: 'It's a solvable problem'

At Safeway, food waste is making its way to people in need instead of landfills thanks to a partnership with the food waste prevention company Divert.

Packaging World reported that, in just three months, the team effort led to a 20% increase in food donations, resulting in an average of 1,252 pounds of food per store being given to the public each month.

Food waste is a major problem in the United States, with nearly 40% of all food going uneaten or unsold, according to Feeding America. That amounts to roughly 92 billion pounds of food, equivalent to 145 billion meals, being tossed into landfills each year. Meanwhile, 47 million people in the U.S., including 14 million children, are food insecure.

Plus, food waste harms the environment by releasing potent planet-warming gases such as methane as it breaks down in landfills. According to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, food loss and waste are responsible for 8-10% of global heat-trapping pollution and cost the economy around $1 trillion per year.

That's where companies such as Divert come in. It uses a comprehensive process that includes liquefaction, depackaging solutions, and anaerobic digestion to separate food waste from packaging and convert it into renewable energy sources and other valuable products. Divert collaborates with retailers to identify inefficiencies in their inventory management and help them reduce food waste.

Any unsold food that can't be donated is turned into non-polluting clean energy, which supplies power to homes and businesses. When food waste undergoes anaerobic digestion, bacteria break it down to produce a nutrient-rich soil amendment that benefits plants and crops.

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In the depackaging process, food is removed from plastic packaging without releasing microplastics, keeping the harmful particles out of waterways and farmlands, where they contaminate crops and harm plant life.

Divert works with nearly 8,000 customers and is looking to expand its operations so that 80% of the U.S. population will be located within 100 miles of a Divert facility by 2031. The company has already made remarkable progress in reducing food waste, processing 600 million pounds of discarded food and helping retailers donate more than 14 million pounds since its launch in 2007.

"Our mission is to eliminate wasted food and create a circular economy," Ben Kuethe Oaks, vice president and general manager, told Packaging World. "By partnering with retailers like Safeway, we're able to put our data-driven solutions into action — preventing waste at the source, recovering edible food for donation, and converting what's left into renewable energy.

"... Food waste isn't just an environmental issue — it's a solvable problem. With the right partnerships and the right technology, we can rethink waste and create a more sustainable food system for everyone."