The Launch event for the Consumer Food Waste Webinar Series was held on Monday, 10/21/24. Dr. Brian Roe from Ohio State University (OSU) and Dr. Sara Elnakib from Rutgers Cooperative Extension (RCE) kicked off the webinar series with an informative talk about their previous work involving food waste and why they have joined forces to create a consumer food waste community of practice. A recording of the webinar can be found here: https://go.rutgers.edu/zk8yotr.

Dr. Brian Roe discussed the OSU/RECIPES National Household Food Waste Tracking Survey that tracks edible waste in 24 distinct food and beverage categories and can be found here: https://kx.osu.edu/landing-page/RECIPES. He also shared some of his recent publications.

Dr. Sara Elnakib talked about the RCE food waste team and their involvement with K-12 schools, specifically focusing on climate change education linked with food waste reduction initiatives. Their most recent educational lessons can be found here: https://sites.rutgers.edu/gotfg/.

The two speakers then went on to explain the recent USDA grant that OSU received to establish a food loss and waste consumer education campaign pilot. OSU will be leading a household food waste reduction campaign in partnership with three U.S. cities and will be conducting consumer food waste evaluations by utilizing hauling routes, self-reported surveys, and 3rd party composting drop-off sites. RCE will be connecting with extension networks and existing ongoing educational networks to establish a consumer food waste community of practice (CoP). This webinar series is part of the initiative to establish a CoP by bringing extension personnel, local/state agencies, and industry personnel together to highlight food waste reduction initiatives that are taking place across the country. The goals of the CoP are to create a hub for professionals to collaborate, share, and learn from each other, create a repository of resources for public use, continuously update group on current events and emerging topics, and work with EPA and other organizations to ensure additivity of the CoP’s activities. The CoP is being hosted by Extension Foundation. This webinar was the first webinar of their monthly webinar series. OSU and RCE will continue hosting monthly webinars that highlight a variety of professionals working in the food waste space.

The next webinar of this series will be on Consumer Education for Household Food Waste Reduction on 11/18/24 at 12:30pm. OSU and RCE will be joined by Dr. Yu Meng from the University of California Cooperative Extension and Dr. Amanda Missimer and Vanessa Venturini from the University of Rhode Island. Register for this webinar by clicking on the link below. We hope to see you then.

Register for the 11/18 Webinar here: https://go.rutgers.edu/mmz91x1n