Why should you care about minimizing food waste at your event?
Nobody wants to waste food. Cutting waste can mean cutting costs, through lowered bottom lines, tax deductions from donations, and reduced disposal expenses. It can decrease your environmental footprint, and can help your community through partnerships with local governments, food pantries, waste management companies, and more. When you commit to fighting food waste, you not only join a rapidly expanding movement – you become a leader of it, building your brand and connecting you to staff and attendees who care about this timely and critical issue.
This toolkit lays out strategies, best practices, and secrets to success for festivals, fairs, conferences, and other events to reduce food waste. It also highlights work happening right now, both from our partners and from inspiring events and entrepreneurs beyond our network. The recommendations included here are diverse by design: you can pick and choose those aligning with your event’s capacity, motivations, and core values. The world of event planning is fast-paced and constantly evolving, and we hope this guide will be, too. New solutions and ideas are constantly emerging in the food waste world, so please send us your thoughts and engage in the conversation using the hashtag at the bottom of each page.
We’d like to thank the experts we spoke to throughout the development of this toolkit.