Consciously addressing food waste.

The United States doesn’t have a food shortage problem, we have a food waste problem. Between 30-40% of our entire food supply ends up in landfills, which equates to a staggering 133 billion pounds of food waste per year. If you’re having trouble visualizing that like we are, maybe this math will hit home— that’s equivalent to the weight of 182 Empire State Buildings put together! Our society produces this waste in these ways:

• At the farm level, food waste can come from problems during harvesting, like disposal of blemished food that can’t be sold, processing finished products, and transportation to manufacturers and grocery stores.
• At the retail level, waste can come from equipment malfunctions, further disposal of blemished products, expired surplus, and over-ordering.

• At the brand level, close-to-expired products that can’t be sold at retail based on a store’s shelf life requirements often result in throwing that food away. Also, occasionally, packaging changes like a recipe change renders old product unsaleable, which often gets sent to the landfill.

• At the consumer level, we contribute to food waste by buying or cooking more than we need, resulting in having to throw it away lest our kitchens get that funky aroma we all know.

This is where Conscious Alliance steps in.

They’re an iconic community of bands, food brands, artists, and fans on a mission to awaken compassion and end hunger nationwide. They work with food brands like Cappello’s to divert healthy, good food that can’t be sold at retail, because of mislabeling or being too short on expiration, and gets it to those who need it most.This year alone, they’ve already prevented 1.9 million pounds of food from being thrown in the landfill! We’ve worked with Conscious Alliance a lot over the years by bringing them into our supply chain process. Even though we do everything we can to prevent any of our food being wasted, we’re glad we have this organization on speed-dial when it does happen. 

This holiday season, we’ve partnered with them in their goal of raising funds to supply a HALF-MILLION meals to families in need across the country. Please consider taking some of your holiday-gift-budget and giving it to this fundraiser. No matter how much you give, your money will be directly impacting the health and nourishment of families who are in need. 

Every $1 you donate provides 2 meals, so your money will go far!