FMI weighs in on proposed food waste national strategy
FMI, the food industry association, has provided comments to the Environmental Protection Agency on the Draft National Strategy for Reducing Food Loss and Waste and Recycling Organics.
The draft strategy comes from the EPA, the USDA and the Food and Drug Administration, according to a news release. FMI said its comments underscored the importance of addressing food loss and waste throughout the entire food supply chain and offered recommendations for consideration as the three agencies finalize the strategy.
“As steps are taken to implement the National Strategy, FMI encourages the agencies to address capacity building and expanding the infrastructure needed to manage surges in demand for food donations,” FMI Vice President for Tax, Trade, Sustainability and Policy Development Andy Harig said in the release. “We would also encourage the three agencies to work with industry to explore areas of collaboration such as better transportation logistics and the ability to leverage existing relationships between farmers, ranchers, manufacturers, and retailers.”
FMI also supported the national strategy’s inclusion of consumer education campaigns, the release said.
“EPA and USDA have both created excellent toolkits and resources to address consumer-level food waste,” Harig said. “However, many of these tools have limited awareness and adoption simply because of the challenges of ‘getting the message out.’ FMI is pleased that the agencies plan to expand these efforts and create options for customization at the community level.”
Harig said it is important to improve metrics regarding food waste measurement.
“FMI supports efforts to improve both measurement and reporting of food waste data,” he said in the release. “However, the measurement process can be challenging even for companies that have invested significant time and money to track waste in their operations; for many small and mid-sized operations, the obstacles to effectively capturing this data can be prohibitively expensive and time-consuming. We encourage the agencies to approach enhancing the measurement process with a focus on creating incentives-based opportunities and capacity building for the entire supply chain.”
Related link: Read FMI's full comment letter
