Our role in the fight against food waste
Let’s start with some particularly alarming facts about food waste:
- Nearly 1/3 of food produced around the world ends up as waste.
- If food waste were a country, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gasses, responsible for 10% of the world’s emissions.
When we consider these facts, it’s clear that food waste is a massive and complex problem. Governments, organizations, individuals and companies all have a role to play in addressing it.
With this in mind, Sodexo has been included in the Age of Change series presented by WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) and content partners, and produced by BBC StoryWorks Commercial Productions to feature some of the steps we’re taking to reduce food waste. This series highlights impactful initiatives around the world that are addressing urgent global sustainable development challenges.
This video was produced for Sodexo by BBC StoryWorks Commercial Productions.
The video showcases our WasteWatch program in action at one of our healthcare sites in the United States. The WasteWatch program allows us to measure how much food is wasted each day and is deployed on our sites around the world.
Why measure food waste?
This innovative program has been deployed across 2,500 of our sites globally, but why?
“Tracking wasted food gives us data, and when we have data, we can make lasting changes to address the issue. These changes include how we manage our kitchens and the way we plan menus, and they also include raising awareness and letting our consumers know what they are wasting too. Each small change makes a difference, and data is how we’ll drive improvement.” Patrick Sochnikoff, Global VP, Corporate Responsibility, Sodexo
What is WasteWatch?
The WasteWatch program enables us to track and measure food waste, and then generate more awareness around how to better avoid it. The program gives our employees insight and power to drastically reduce food waste everyday.
How much have we saved so far?
Our 2025 target is to reduce our food waste by 50% through the deployment of Sodexo’s WasteWatch program in 85% of our food service sites globally. As of 2021, our WasteWatch program has been deployed in 27.6% of sites in 26 countries, with food waste reduction of 45.8% compared to the deployed sites’ baseline.
While we can be impactful because of our size as an organization, our teams and our partners are how we really make a difference. Our partners, like WWF, provide technical knowledge and insight around this issue that enable us to drive change with our food waste reduction strategy and carbon reduction action. Each and every employee using the WasteWatch program is contributing to reducing food waste every day.
We must do more for future generations and we haven’t finished yet.
Find out more about the different ways we are
