Walmart and Sodexo Join Pacific Coast Food Waste Commitment to Help Cut Regional Food Waste in Half by 2030

The Participation of These Industry Leaders Extends Their Efforts to Fight Food Waste and Serves as an Inspiration for Other Businesses to Do Their Part

OLYMPIA, Wash., March 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the Pacific Coast Food Waste Commitment (PCFWC) announced that Sodexo US and Walmart U.S. have publicly committed to support and work towards PCFWC's goal to reduce and prevent food waste by 50% along the West Coast of the United States by 2030 as a climate change solution. The partnership builds on the long-standing efforts of both companies to reduce food loss and waste throughout their operations, while also helping to inform and inspire their business peers through the sharing of data and best practices.

Food waste is responsible for approximately 4% of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States – the same amount generated by 21% of cars on the road. The PCFWC is one of the largest public-private partnerships dedicated to food waste reduction, bringing together food businesses and local jurisdictions on the West Coast to reduce food waste in accordance with national and international sustainability targets. The participation of these two industry leaders will enhance the effort in important ways, both through their work to reduce waste throughout their own operations and through their influence on suppliers and other partners up and down the value chain. Importantly, it will also serve as a model for collaboration for other businesses who are considering committing to the PCFWC and sends a strong signal to the industry that partnering with other businesses in a pre-competitive format is an important way to target, measure, and act to reduce food waste.

"Sodexo is committed to reduce food waste by 50% by 2025," said Sodexo North America CEO Food Transformation and Service Operations Husein Kitabwalla. "Whether through monitoring and tracking waste, a focus on foods that fight climate change instead of adding to it, and creating strategic partnerships, such as with the PCFWC, Sodexo is continually looking to leverage small steps every day that make a big impact." 

"We are proud to support the PCFWC in this effort to reduce food waste. At Walmart, reducing waste has been a point of focus for many years. Since 2019 we have sold 862 million food units through food discount programs. In CY2020, we donated more than 745 million pounds of food globally. Better data can identify scalable ways for us to accelerate these efforts further, and it is incumbent on retailers like Walmart to join efforts such as the PCFWC to address these systemic issues," said Jane Ewing, SVP, Sustainability at Walmart.

"Food waste is a systemwide problem, which means it requires a systemwide commitment to solve it," said Pete Pearson, Senior Director of Food Loss and Waste at World Wildlife Fund (WWF), a PCFWC resource partner. "The participation of industry leaders like Walmart and Sodexo in the PCFWC shows that waste reduction is no longer a competitive issue. Their presence will demonstrate to others that when businesses are working together to measure, share data, and reduce waste, overall progress will happen much faster."

As the number one seller of groceries along the West Coast and across the country, Walmart's data on food loss and waste throughout their operations in the region (which will be anonymized and aggregated with data from the PCFWC's other retail signatories) will help provide a more precise estimate of waste across the entire retail sector and allow a more accurate identification of key waste "hot spots" to target. Walmart's participation in the PCFWC builds on their 15+ years of sustainability leadership and aligns with its goals under Project Gigaton^TM, a company-wide effort to work with its suppliers to reduce or avoid one gigaton of greenhouse gas emissions from the global value chain by 2030.

As the first foodservice company to join the PCFWC, Sodexo's participation provides a significant expansion of PCFWC's efforts, through its work with hospitals, campuses, and other institutional buildings. It also extends the company's ongoing work to cut food waste in its own operations. Sodexo's current initiatives include tracking data on waste in its kitchens and by customers; training and engaging team members in innovative ways to drive food waste prevention; and offering its daily surplus to local NGOs for redistribution to those in need.

The PCFWC provides a unique opportunity for businesses and jurisdictions to work collaboratively to drive food waste reduction in the Pacific Coast region. Signatories to the PCFWC receive a range of benefits, including:

• Return on Investment – Food waste reduction programs around the world have shown proven significant return on investment for all types of food businesses;
• Data Insights – Aggregated anonymous reporting from all PCFWC signatories enables businesses to measure their progress, identify priority areas of action, and benchmark against competitors; and
• Industry Collaboration – Pre-competitive Working Groups open to all PCFWC signatories offer opportunities for businesses to learn from each other's successes; discuss solutions to challenges; and engage with government representatives through special policy roundtable discussions.

The PCFWC also serves as a model of collaboration for other regions around the country to do their part to reduce food waste. It is aligned with the "U.S. Food Loss and Waste 2030 Champions" program from the USDA and EPA, as well as important global efforts, such as World Resources Institute's "10x20x30" initiative, which brings together ten of the world's biggest food retailers – including Sodexo and Walmart – and providers to each engage with 20 of their priority suppliers to halve rates of food loss and waste by 2030. All of these efforts were implemented to drive action to achieve United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 12.3, which details targets for food waste reduction around the world.

In 2019, the Pacific Coast Collaborative – a coalition including the U.S. states of Washington, Oregon, and California; British Columbia, Canada; and the cities of Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, and Vancouver, British Columbia; along with nonprofit resource partners ReFED, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and WRAP – called on food businesses and their supply chain partners to join the PCFWC, one of the largest public-private partnerships in the world focused on reducing food waste. The first signatories included Albertsons Companies West Coast division, which includes stores such as Albertsons, Safeway, Vons, and Pavilions; The Kroger Co.; PCC Community Markets; New Seasons Market; Raley's, and Sprouts Farmers Markets. Manufacturing industry association Food Northwest and Bob's Red Mill joined the effort in 2021, emphasizing the need to reduce waste across the entire supply chain.

Food businesses and jurisdictions interested in joining the PCFWC can visit http://pacificcoastcollaborative.org/food-waste/.

Sodexo North America is part of a global, Fortune 500 company with a presence in 56 countries. Sodexo is a leading provider of integrated food, facilities management and other services that enhance organizational performance, contribute to local communities and improve quality of life for millions of customers in corporate, education, healthcare, senior living, government, Sodexo Live! and other environments daily. The company employs 125,000 people at thousands of sites in all 50 U.S. states, Canada, Puerto Rico and Guam, and indirectly supports tens of thousands of additional jobs through its annual purchases of $20B in goods and services from small to large businesses. Sodexo is committed to supporting diversity, equity, inclusion and safety, while upholding the highest standards of corporate responsibility and ethical business conduct. In support of local communities across the U.S., in 2021, the Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation mobilized more than 11,000 volunteers to distribute 1.8 million meals to help 2.5 million children and adults meet their immediate food needs. Since 1996, the Stop Hunger Foundation has contributed $38 million to help feed children in America impacted by hunger. To learn more about Sodexo, visit us.sodexo.com, and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube. 

Walmart Inc. helps people around the world save money and live better - anytime and anywhere - in retail stores, online, and through their mobile devices. Each week,approximately 230 million customers and members visit approximately 10,500 stores and clubs under 46 banners in 24 countries and eCommerce websites. With fiscal year 2022 revenue of$573 billion, Walmart employs 2.3 million associates worldwide. Walmart continues to be a leader in sustainability, corporate philanthropy and employment opportunity. Additional information about Walmart can be found by visiting https://corporate.walmart.com, on Facebook at https://facebook.com/walmart and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/walmart.

The Pacific Coast Food Waste Commitment is a collaboration between U.S.-based leaders from the food industries and area jurisdictions in a public-private commitment to cut the amount of wasted food in half by 2030 – a success metric aligned with United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 and other global, national, and regional commitments. To assist in moving the initiative forward, PCC established collaborations with World Wildlife Fund (WWF), ReFED, and WRAP as resource partners to provide expertise, additional philanthropic funding, and capacity for implementation. Cascadia Policy Solutions serves as facilitator and has provided foundational and ongoing critical support to the broader Pacific Coast Collaborative since 2011. Learn more at https://pacificcoastcollaborative.org/food-waste.

MEDIA CONTACTS:
PCFWC - Melody Serafino, The Number 29
[email protected]

Sodexo – Heidi Bullman
[email protected]

Walmart – Aman Singh
[email protected]

SOURCE Pacific Coast Food Waste Commitment