Food waste is an issue that affects everyone. The mind-blowing fact is that 63 million tons of food gets thrown away each year in America alone, with about 40 percent of that waste happening inside our homes where thrown away food costs the typical family of four a staggering $1,500 a year.
This week, General Mills kicked off #tastenotwaste, an entirely new public campaign on our biggest consumer platform – BettyCrocker.com – in an effort to help educate consumers on the impact of food waste to their pocketbooks and the environment, while giving them tools, recipes, ideas and other easy ways to take action.
To follow the campaign along, checkout Betty Crocker on Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest over the course of the two-week #tastenotwaste campaign. You’ll benefit from tips, tricks and great recipes to help you reduce food waste in your own home. The campaign culminates on World Food Day on October 16, but the campaign page will be live year-round.
As a company, General Mills has long been on the forefront of food waste prevention especially as it pertains to food security and environmental sustainability. Most recently, we’ve invested in programs like MealConnect with Feeding America and FareShareGO in the UK to make sure surplus food gets from food companies, grocery stores and restaurants to feed hungry people, not garbage cans. Within our own supply chain, General Mills devotes considerable focus, time and resources via our holistic margin management approach, Zero Loss Culture and continuous improvement efforts to reduce any food waste and ensure responsible and sustainable food production. Our efforts have helped reduce overall waste generation at our manufacturing plants by 40 percent since 2005.
Surplus food from our manufacturing plants in the U.S. gets donated to the 200+ food banks nationwide that are members of Feeding America. Since 2010 alone, General Mills donations of surplus food have enabled more than 300 million meals for hungry families who are served by nonprofit community agencies who source their food from Feeding America member food banks.
We firmly believe in sharing what works, learning from others and collaborating across sectors to help advance food waste solutions. To that end, General Mills is a founding partner of the U.S. Food Waste Challenge, a collaborative effort of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and co-chair of the Food Waste Reduction Alliance, among many other coalitions and collaborations.
“As a global food company, we have the responsibility and the opportunity to lead this behavior change,” says Nicola Dixon, associate director of the General Mills Foundation. “Cross-sector collaboration and working across boundaries, like we are doing with this campaign, is where we are seeing the greatest impact and potential for widespread positive results.”
