Explore the top actions your business can take to tackle food waste, including practical actions, guidance and downloadable resources to support your food waste reduction journey.
You can’t manage what you don’t measure. Waste that isn’t tracked stays invisible and costly. Accurate measurement identifies hotspots and drives targeted interventions.
Business value:
- Reduce costs
- Benchmark performance
- Unlock ESG reporting
What to do:
- Start by conducting a basic food waste audit at one site for 1-2 weeks using our Rapid Review Toolkit (below)
- Track waste volumes, types, and disposal costs to identify your food waste hotspots
Kai Commitment can help you with:
- Global best practice food loss and waste measurement, aligned to global protocols (UN Food Loss and Waste Reporting Protocol).
- Small businesses can use our Food Waste Rapid Review Toolkit
- Converting waste data into emissions and financial impacts
- Benchmarking your performance against industry peers
- Identifying priority intervention areas (e.g. key causes of waste, opportunities for selling more, or donating unsold food and wasting less
Resources:
Link food waste reduction to existing business priorities, whether that’s cost savings, innovation, staff engagement, environmental goals, carbon reporting, or reputation management.
Why it matters:
The food system accounts for 30% of global emissions, while 10% comes from food waste disposal – every food business contributes to these emissions. At the same time, food waste represents a missed opportunity to support communities, engage staff in purposeful outcomes and ensure operational excellence – all core aspects of an ESG strategy.
Business value:
- Drive operational excellence and cost efficiency
- Align with net-zero commitments
- Meet investor, staff and customer expectations
What to do:
- Start by measuring your food waste to identify your hotspots
- Review these through a risk and opportunity lens – e.g. does this food waste represent a governance gap, a financial loss or reputational risk, or are there value creation opportunities (e.g. loss of expensive ingredients, high-emission foods, edible food with revenue potential, repurposable materials)
- Evaluate how waste reduction supports current business and ESG objectives
- Include food waste data in ESG frameworks and climate disclosures to build stakeholder confidence
- Position food waste reduction as a pathway to operational excellence, circular economy principles, and climate commitments
Kai Commitment can help you with:
- Measuring food waste to establish materiality across economic, social, and environmental dimensions
- Providing data for climate disclosures and a solution mechanism for ESG reporting
- Developing compelling narratives for stakeholder communications.
Resources:
- Rethinking food waste as a lever for growth (CGF)
- Briefing doc: Food waste climate connection – Coming soon
Set planned activities, targets, KPIs, and accountability to reduce food waste.
Why it matters: Targets and accountability drive action. Without them, efforts stall, and progress is hard to track.
Business value:
- Team alignment
- Track progress
- Accelerate results
What to do:
- Draft a simple one-page food waste action plan
- Identify which department should lead food waste efforts and establish the cross-functional buy-in you need to implement your plan
- Set a basic internal reduction target (e.g., reduce waste by 25% in 12 months) and cascade the targets into KPIs
- Decide how you’ll track and report progress
Kai Commitment can help you with:
- Guidance on building cross-functional teams for best results
- Setting data-informed targets and executive/operational KPIs
- Developing a comprehensive action plan for following the global best practice actions on food waste
Resources:
Why it matters: Staff experience waste daily – their ideas and behaviours are critical for prevention. Engagement builds ownership and drives cultural change.
Business value:
- Staff pride and engagement
- Fresh ideas for efficiency
- Less waste = savings
What to do:
- Start by running a simple staff awareness campaign about food waste and its impacts
- Ask teams to identify waste they see in their daily work – keep an idea-log/suggestion box
- Include food waste in one team meeting or training session
- Create motivation and generate ideas through competition
Kai Commitment can help you with:
- Tools to help your staff conduct food waste audits in their workplaces (see Kai Commitment’s Food Waste Rapid Review Toolkit)
- Accessing global best practice and staff training program resources
- Accessing experience in establishing food waste champion networks across your organisation
Resources:
Reduce FLW through improved forecasting, production process reviews and Standard Operating Procedures.
Why it matters:
Operational processes can be a major driver of food waste – more efficient food production reduces unnecessary waste of financial, human and natural resources across the whole food system
Business value:
- Cost savings
- Innovation
- Improved efficiency
What to do:
- Start by reviewing your key operational processes. Walk your production line to spot waste points and consider the underlying causes of waste (see resources below)
- Opportunities to reduce unnecessary waste can be found in more precise forecasting, better stock management, refining production processes, investing in equipment and technology, and reducing damage or spoiling during packing, storage and transit
- Review Standard Operating Procedures to include food waste prevention activities to change organisational behaviour over time
- Trial small interventions and track results to build the business case for permanent change
- Consider technology-enabled solutions to upgrade operations
Kai Commitment can help you with:
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Self-assessing your food waste hotspots in your production line using our Walk the Line tool.
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Investigating the underlying causes of waste using our Root Cause Analysis Tool
- Accessing knowledge and experience in innovative solutions for food waste through global, local, and global resources and case studies
Resources:
- Root-Cause Analysis Template (in development)
- Walk the Line Tool (in development)
- Systemic Drivers Interactive Map (US)
- Kai Commitment Case Study: Woolworths
Prevent waste from the start. Consider food waste throughout your product development and packaging processes and reviews.
Why it matters: Products designed with waste prevention in mind prevent the downstream waste of resources for both business and customers.
Business value:
- Differentiate brand
- Lower environmental footprint
- Meet customer expectations
What to do:
- Start by reviewing 1-2 products for obvious packaging or portion issues
- Add food waste-related criteria to your New Product Design criteria
- Check if current shelf-life dates are still accurate or if they could be extended to reduce waste while maintaining food safety.
- Ask customers about storage or usage challenges with your products
- Consider new technology available – including intelligent packaging/labelling
- Look for simple by-product reuse opportunities to enhance the circularity of your products
Kai Commitment can help you with:
- Accessing global best practice guidance and case studies where product and packaging redesign and labelling innovations have reduced food waste without compromising food safety
Resources:
Why it matters:
Surplus often becomes a cost instead of a revenue opportunity, and yet, surplus is potential income. Unlocking its value improves margins and sustainability credentials.
Business value:
- Recover revenue
- Reach new customers
- Improve utilisation
What to do:
- Identify current surplus streams and their disposal costs
- Trial selling surplus through one new channel (e.g., staff store, discount app)
- Look for simple value-added uses for surplus ingredients
- Connect with one local business interested in your by-products
Kai Commitment can help you with:
- Measuring your surplus utilisation, including disposal cost savings and new revenue streams
- Collaboration networks for surplus redistribution
Resources:
- WRAP’s waste and byproduct mapping tool and business case for valorisation template
- Surplus Redistribution Strategy Template (in development)
Feed vulnerable people and communities with edible surplus food.
Why it matters: Edible food should never go to waste when people face food insecurity.
Business value:
- Lower disposal costs
- Build social licence and goodwill
- Positive brand impact
What to do:
- Create donation protocols or use tech for donation matching
- Train staff to segregate edible waste
- Claim tax benefit for donations of trading stock
- Establish relationships with local food rescue organisations
- Refine logistics so unsold food is donated before it expires or spoils
Resources:
AFRA food donor guide, food safety guide, and best before date guidelines
Manage unavoidable waste using the Food Recovery Hierarchy.
Why it matters: Not all food waste can be prevented, but it can still deliver value for your business or the food system via composting, animal feed, or energy recovery.
Business Value:
- Reduce emissions
- Lower disposal costs
- Boost sustainability credentials
What to do:
- Start by measuring and mapping your current inedible waste streams to identify value recovery options
- When waste can’t be prevented, use the Food Recovery Hierarchy for the best use destinations: e.g. upcycling to non-food products > compost > energy recovery.
- Consider working with R&D organisations on upcycling opportunities
- Research local farmers, composting, worm or insect farming or anaerobic digestion options to avoid landfill or wastewater disposal
Kai Commitment can help you with:
- Measuring your inedible food waste – the size of the recovery opportunity
- Connection with solution providers who are assisting businesses in recovering value from food waste streams
- Environmental impact calculations
Resources:
Why it matters Food waste often occurs in a different place than its root cause – whether that be within a business or in the interface between businesses (e.g. forecasting, ordering, packaging design). Collaboration within a company and across supply chains is therefore critical to most food waste interventions. Using procurement levers is a powerful way to nudge supply chains towards better food waste management – creating collective impact.
Business Value:
- Stronger supplier relationships
- Cost and efficiency gains
- Leadership in your supply chain
What to do:
- Start by adding food waste to the agenda of your next supplier/customer meeting
- Review one area where your business decisions might create waste in another area of the supply chain
- Ask suppliers about their own waste reduction efforts and support their initiatives
Kai Commitment can help you with:
- Mapping the drivers of food waste across your supply chains
- Identifying waste hotspots at supply chain interface points
- Facilitating industry connections and knowledge-sharing networks
Resources:
Educate consumers on the impacts of food waste and shape consumer environments to reduce food waste.
Why it matters: Informed consumers waste less food. Significant amounts of food waste happen in households. Businesses can influence consumer behaviour to reduce it through supply-side actions
Business Value:
- Meet consumer expectations
- Build loyalty
- Strengthen brand differentiation
What to do:
- Start by adding simple storage tips to product packaging or point of sale
- Review customer complaints for waste-related issues
- Ask customers about challenges using your products without waste
- Run consumer education campaigns
- Include storage and portion guidance or usage tips in your marketing
- Participate in sector-wide initiatives on consumer awareness and behaviour change
Kai Commitment can help you with:
- Access to consumer behaviour research and waste pattern analysis
- Access to capability-building tools for engaging with your consumers on food waste
- Participate in sector-wide initiatives on consumer awareness and behaviour change
Resources:
- Influencing Consumer Food Waste – A guide for food businesses (in development)
Join industry action and advocate for policy change.
Why it matters: Businesses can lead and shape industry norms and influence policy attention, creating systemic impact
Business Value:
- Industry recognition
- Brand enhancement
- System-wide impact
What to do:
- Start by sharing one food waste-related success story within your staff and sector
- Connect with other businesses interested in waste reduction for a coordinated approach
- Advocate to the central and local government for stronger food waste policies (e.g. incentives, infrastructure, coordinating resources)
- Join industry coalitions like Kai Commitment
Kai Commitment can help you with:
- Case study development for public sharing
- Understanding the current food waste policy landscape in Aotearoa New Zealand and our advocacy
- Access to Kai Commitment’s network of leading companies and international best practices
Resources:
