The second webinar of the Consumer Food Waste Webinar Series was held on Monday, 11/18/24. This webinar feature three speakers: Dr. Yu Meng from the University of California Cooperative Extension and Dr. Amanda Missimer and Vanessa Venturini from the University of Rhode Island.

Dr. Yu Meng is the Youth, Families, and Community Advisor at UC-ANR. She shared results from the UC-ANR Household Food Practice Survey as well as preliminary results from their Household Food Waste Pilot Study. She presented these initiatives as opportunities to engage Extension staff and volunteers in reducing household food waste. The survey revealed a need to increase staff and volunteers’ awareness, food waste reduction practices, and readiness, and an urgent need to develop educational materials and training for staff and volunteers to expand Extension activities to reduce food waste at the consumer level. Research with low-income communities on household food waste practices will fill the gap in the literature to understand their awareness, motivations, and challenges in reducing household food waste and will direct the next step of community education.  Dr. Yu Meng shared a preview of their Community Educator Toolkit, which is currently in the works for publication and encouraged audience members to reach out for more information.

Amanda Missimer is a Clinical Assistant Professor and Vanessa Venturini is a State Program Leader for URI. Amanda and Vanessa discussed their Food Recovery for Rhode Island program, a consumer education program that addresses food waste, food insecurity, and climate change enabling trained volunteers to support community-driven change. They offer a 6-week food recovery course that includes online education, hands-on field sessions, and an internship that leads to real results for community-driven food recovery. They shared that they have seen promising results with this program, and it is highly favorable amongst participants. Amanda and Vanessa presented this program as an opportunity to collaborate with other states and encouraged audience members to connect with them.

Recording of the November Webinar can be found here: November Webinar Zoom Recording

The next webinar of this series will be on Food Donation on 12/16/24 at 12:30pm. We will feature Hélène Lanctuit, CEO of Share My Meals, and Heather Latino, attorney and Clinical Instructor from Harvard Law School’s Food Law & Policy Clinic. We hope to see you then!

Register for the 12/16 Webinar here: https://go.rutgers.edu/l5efrlxv

Join the Consumer Food Waste Community of Practice page here: https://go.rutgers.edu/ijs0jpsn