This letter from ReFED President Dana Gunders and Board Chair Pamela Murphy appears at the beginning of our 2024 Annual Impact Report.

Progress is a funny thing. It tends to happen slowly and then all at once. When it comes to food waste, after years of slow, methodical, and at times agonizing build-up, there was a sudden release of energy. Milestones, unimaginable just a couple of years ago, were achieved. Successful stories spread like wildflowers across our food system, creating new momentum. As the food waste movement’s “Convener-In-Chief” and central hub for intelligence, ReFED played a key role in each of these successes. In 2024, we broke through.

The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture launched the United States’ first National Strategy for Reducing Food Loss and Waste and Recycling Organics and chose ReFED’s annual Food Waste Solutions Summit as the place to announce it. California passed a game-changing law to standardize food date labels, clearing a path for other states and countries to follow suit—and our data and insights were used to underpin the case for it. Grocery retailers on the West Coast decreased the amount of unsold food at risk of going to waste in their operations by 25%, the largest-ever reduction reported at this scale. As a key partner in that effort, ReFED provided technical assistance and customized analytics to these businesses to chart the path to their historic reductions.

All of this movement is why the theme of this year’s annual impact report is Momentum. The following pages are filled with stories of how we harnessed, accelerated, and channeled the energy of the food waste movement to produce results. You’ll also find snapshots of the exciting momentum within our organization, including adding a new executive director and additional team members. As you flip through the moments that defined ReFED’s 2024, we hope you’ll join us in celebrating the wins, so important when taking on a topic as enormous as food waste.

There is still so much to be done, so we hope these stories will energize you. Reducing food waste is a collective effort. Our successes are shared by a vast network of partners and donors who empower everything we do. We’ll need each of you in 2025—and beyond— because despite many changes across the country, the opportunity to accelerate and expand our progress has never been greater. If you see a place where you can contribute, please reach out. Together, we’ll roll up our sleeves and get to work.

Warmly,

Read our 2024 Annual Impact Report. To stay up-to-date on what's happening at ReFED and in the food waste space, sign up for our mailing list.