The Last Food Mile: Conference Summary

A 2014 report by the Economic Research Service of the USDA revealed that 31% - or 133 billion pounds – of the available food supply at the retail and consumer levels went uneaten by Americans in 2010. Such a vast amount of waste is particularly difficult to accept given that roughly one in six Americans experience food insecurity, and that inadequate nutrition is leading to a serious increase in obesity and diet-related illness. Further, food waste involves waste of all associated resource inputs, and it has serious negative impacts on the environment in terms of air and water pollution. Food loss and waste occurs for myriad reasons at all levels of the food supply chain in the US, from the grower to the manufacturer to the retailer and to the consumer (i.e. from field to fork). The Last Food Mile Conference was organized to bring multi-disciplinary thought leaders together in an intensive, two-day format to discuss the amount and causes of food wastage at each stage, the barriers to implementing change, the multiple opportunities in excess food, lessons from current efforts to reduce wastage and how to leverage them, and how to lead behavior change for long-term solutions.