Closing the Loop on Food Waste

Up to 40% of food that is grown or processed globally ends up being wasted. And as the global food system begins to rally around advancing a “circular economy” to address the problem, that statistic drops from the lips of nearly everybody who’s motivated to do something about it.

If true, that estimate­­—first hatched by the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) environmental group in 2012—is a mammoth indictment of many things: food producers and manufacturers, policymakers, educators, and c…