Food waste typically ends up on in landfills, which exacerbates climate change, but in Massachusetts, dairy farmers are converting the waste into electricity. Food waste from around the state is gathered, ground, and liquefied and then transported to an anaerobic digester on a dairy farm which is able to convert enough energy to power more than just the farm.

A vacuum in government leadership means that entrepreneurs, restauranteurs, and social leaders have stepped up to find creative solutions for food waste in Britain. Some of those solutions include restaurants that are committed to creating minimal food waste, nonprofits and grocery stores that work together to distribute food, and Britain's first pay-what-you-like market.

To play a part towards the reduction of food waste, especially that which was being perpetrated by his own store, grocery store manager Bart Roetert decided to pitch an idea to the Netherlands grocery chain owner Albert Heijn. With the support and financial backing securing, he and two colleagues launched Instock - a niche startup restaurant that serves meals only made from surplus food.

Monitoring spikes in ethylene allows produce distributors to reduce food waste. The Philadelphia based company, Strella Biotech, uses sensors and the Internet of Things (IoT) to track when produce begins to emit ethylene and ripen. By paying closer attention to the status of their produce, distributors partnering with Stella Biotech have reduced food waste and saved money in the process.

Luxury hotels collect and reuse food waste. The hotels audit their waste, then useful ways to give it new life—as compost, animal feed, or even biogas.

In an era when 1.3 billion tons of food are wasted each year, a nonprofit organization in New Zealand called The Free Store collects surplus food from cafes and restaurants to redistribute to the public - at no cost to the consumer. The Free Store, which started in Wellington and has spread across the country, opens its doors every weeknight to anyone in search of a free meal, regardless of economic background or status.

Researchers figure that roughly a third of all the food we produce is never eaten. In Paris, a new restaurant is taking a small slice out of all that waste by salvaging discarded food from a local market, cooking it up into fine cuisine, and serving it on a "pay-what-you-can" basis to a clientele that includes some of the city's neediest residents.

As the COVID-19 pandemic hit and grocery store shelves became bare, many consumers sought to purchase meat directly from farmers. The Shop Kansas Farms group on Facebook has more than 148,000 members with about 800 producers who are selling their goods. While there needs to be more education for farmers on how to sell their livestock and for consumers on the intricacies of buying from processors, people in other states are creating their own groups to better connect consumers to vendors.

Some Detroit residents can soon trade the long commute to big chain grocery stores for Neighborhood Grocery, a new store with local produce intended to actually cater to the needs of the customers it will serve. Other benefits include job creation, reduction of food waste, and food items that residents help choose. Local organizations are providing funding to get the grocery off the ground.

A third of surveyed college students experience food insecurity, the rate is even higher at Western Washington University. To address the issue that university has unfolded a number of responses; food pantries, meal donations, community gardens, and state assitance, among others.

Improving community nutrition requires making healthy food accessible and affordable. In Westlake, California, LaRayia’s Bodega provides healthy food at a convenience store price point of five dollars or less. Donations of misshapen fruit help to reduce costs. The bodega operates as part of the Love Without Reason nonprofit, which operates a meal program.

When the economy came to a sudden halt with the onset of a global pandemic, farmers were left with produce meant for the restaurant industry while families who lost incomes struggled to put food on their tables. For one good samaritan “it was just a matter of connecting the dots.” George Ahearn's idea to crowdsource transportation from farms to food banks led to the creation of EastWest Food Rescue, a nonprofit that has delivered 2.4 million pounds of crops to 160 food banks.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Rafael Duckur, an organic food producer in Brazil, started Pertim, a network of farmers working to help families in neighborhoods who can’t meet their basic needs. The group buys food like fruits, vegetables, eggs, and coffee from farmers to fill boxes that are sent to the neighborhoods. While the logistics of collecting and distributing the boxes can be difficult, Pertim hopes to cut down on food waste from unsold produce while supporting local agriculture producers.

The University of Notre Dame installed three Grind2Energy systems, which aims to reduce the amount of food waste from the campus’ dining halls. The systems process the waste and send it to a local dairy farm where they break down the material to produce biogas that is used to generate electrical power for 1,000 homes each day in Plymouth, Indiana. While not everyone at the university has committed to the sustainability efforts, these systems can be scaled to be used on other college campuses.

Food waste diverted from the landfill to anaerobic digesters can be used to create electricity. In Massachusetts, farmers and businesses participate in a waste-to-energy project in partnership with Vanguard Renewables. Discarded food waste is mixed with cow manure and fed into a digester. The gasses created are then used to power electric generators.

Composting reduces the waste that fill landfills, but it's not always a common practice. Food For Lane County and Compost Crew are two operations in Oregon that are working to change this through local control operations that help the environment and get food into the hands of those that need it.

Federal funding helped local food producers expand their operations to include processing plants which enables farmers to meet the demand of Montanans who sought an alternative to the empty grocery store shelves. The lack of processing plants has caused a bottleneck in the local food supply chain, a sore point which was amplified when the pandemic disrupted international supply chains, sending shoppers to their neighborhood farms. Small operators rarely have their own processing plants and must outsource that step in order to take their products to market.

By collaborating with other businesses, nonprofits, and institutions, food processing enterprises in Montana are expanding the local supply chain to keep food in the state. The Mission Mountain Food Enterprise Center packages food for a local grower's co-op, which distribute Montana products to individuals, grocery stores, and restaurants. The Livingston Food Resource Center created its own partnerships by buying its food from Montana farmers to give to people experiencing economic hardship. These collaborations are reducing the costs for local food processing, which also cuts down on costs for customers.

Small businesses, such as Lively Run Goat Dairy, were able to quickly pivot during the initial chaos in the aftermath of pandemic shutdowns. The small dairy farm was able to salvage hundreds of pounds of milk that was set to be dumped by large industrial farms. It bought the milk with initial donations through GoFundMe and made cheese which was delivered free of charge to local food banks. Their nimble pivot to “strengthen distribution systems and feed their community” was even praised by the governor of NY who went on to create a project that connects farmers with food banks.

As middle men between farmers and consumers, food hubs in New Hampshire are eliminating the marketing and distribution typically done by food producers. Food hubs streamline the process of procuring local goods for customers who want various products without the hassle of multiple purchases and pickups. The aggregation of local produce strengthens infrastructure that enables farmers to increase output especially as demand for locally grown foods have increased since the onset of the pandemic.