 Hello and welcome. My name is Florian Durer and I'm an Associate Professional Officer at Epo North America. It is my pleasure to serve as your moderator today. On behalf of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, thank you for joining us today for this webinar ahead of the first ever International Day of Awareness on Food Loss and Waste, which is a global call to action to transform and rebalance the way our food is produced and consumed. Let me give you a brief overview of today's event. The webinar will provide a platform for stakeholders in Canada, the United States and Mexico to present on and discuss critical food loss and waste reduction policies and projects. After welcome remarks and two keynote speeches from FAO and the CDC, we will hear from a governmental panel about food loss and waste reduction efforts in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. We will then hear a private sector perspective, an academic perspective and a youth entrepreneurship perspective on how to reduce food loss and waste. After the Q&A section addressing questions from you, the audience, we will hear closing remarks from Lena Paul, FAO representative to Mexico. Now to get us started on the topic, let us watch the official public service announcement on the International Day of Awareness on Food Loss and Waste. Easy to forget how food arrives on your plate. And that makes it even easier to waste it. Let's end food loss and waste today. 29 September 2020. International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste. This video is a reminder that food doesn't magically appear in supermarket shelves, but that if we waste food, we also waste all the resources that go into producing it. But without further ado, let me hand over to Wim Lendra Sharon, director of the FAO Liaison Office for North America. Mr. Sharon brings with him more than two decades of national and international government leadership experience focusing on rural development, agriculture and food security issues. Dear Wim Lendra, the floor is yours. Thank you, Florian. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening to all of you joining from various parts of the globe. I just saw in the participants list people joining in from US, Canada, parts of Mexico, parts of Europe, even from Africa and parts of Asia. So we are actually global on this platform today. I welcome all of you to this webinar on the occasion of the first ever International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste, which is being celebrated globally tomorrow. We want to recognize the leadership of Andorra and San Marino in establishing this day, which hopefully from now on will get celebrated every day, every year on the 29th of September. I was mentioning to colleagues earlier when the webinar had not started, but how excited we are today to have a really truly North American webinar. Our office has a remit, FAO North America has a remit of USA and Canada. And most of you have been to our earlier webinars where they found our speakers and panelists all concentrated from USA and Canada. But today we have Mexico along with USA and Canada, and that is really giving it a North American flavor. And also bringing in a very different context. While USA and Canada has its own specific context, Mexico brings in a very, very different flavor to the whole discussion. So thank you, Lena, FAO Countryhead in Mexico for agreeing to be a part of this. Thank you to all the representatives from the Mexican government and organizations who are part of this. A special thanks to CEC who are co-hosting this event with us. We will hear definitely more about CEC from Richard Moghunde, Executive Director who's joining us for this event. International Day is a good time, I think, to pause and to really think as to how the world is faring in its endeavor to reduce food loss and waste. The answer sadly is not very encouraging and much, much more needs to be done than what we're doing currently. I'll not get into the impact of food loss and waste. I think it's very well known to everyone. The impact on food security, the impact on greenhouse gas emissions, the impact on limited land and water resources, these are well known and accepted. But my pitch actually is to, its time has come to move from advocacy to action. And it is very important as we sit around multiple roundtables and webinars to mark this day for us to deliberate upon policy actions that must be initiated sooner rather than later. And these policy actions have to be informed by science, have to be informed by evidence and not just by gut feelings and what we've heard. So it's very important that we know what constitutes food loss and what constitutes food waste. What distinguishes them? How do we measure them? What aspect of food loss and waste are we planning to really tackle through our policy interventions? Is it conservation of resources, which is our primary focus? Or is it impact on the greenhouse gas emission, which is our primary focus? Because these will determine our policies. Where in the value chain are we going to initiate action? Which part of the world will see what type of actions to ensure that food loss and waste are brought to the minimum? What about issues around food safety? Multiple such questions must be addressed to come up with a correct policy prescription. What holds maybe true for US and Canada may not hold true for say Mexico or Bangladesh. So there are different contexts and these contexts must be understood. The socioeconomic model behind these countries and the way they function that must be understood. And only then we can come up with the right prescription. And I'm sure all our panelists today are experts. They have worked in this field, they know the area, and they will be speaking to these questions and many more in their presentations. So let me stop there. But before signing off, it's my pleasure to introduce Richard Morgan, the Executive Director of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation. Richard, originally from Montreal, joined CEC after serving a four-year term as Commissioner of the Canada-US International Joint Commission till up to 2018. He brings over 30 years of combined experience in government, business, and management consulting in several sectors, ranging from natural resources to health sciences. Richard started his career as an Executive Assistant to Prime Minister Maroney and later served as a Special Advisor, Director of Planning and Operations over a seven-year period. So I think the range of CEC is in real safe hands. And I'm sure Richard in his talk with us just now will lay out the important work that CEC is doing in this area. So Richard, welcome and the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you. Hello everyone and thank you to Mr. Charan and to FAO North America for inviting the CEC to co-host this important event, marking the first ever International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste. I wanted to offer our very best wishes to FAO on its 75th anniversary in 2020 and wish you all continued success. The issue of food loss and waste is a major challenge we as a society have to face. And marking a day of international awareness is a fantastic initiative. At the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, we work with the federal governments of Canada, Mexico and the United States on environmental issues of common interest. We provide a neutral forum for examining emerging and complex issues and possible strategies to address them. Under the new North American Trade Agreement, a renewed commitment has been made by the three governments to work together on environmental concerns. Circular economy issues and the overall shift towards more sustainable production and consumption patterns are a key pillar of our Commission's new five-year strategic plan. Addressing the issue of food loss and waste has been a major part of our agenda at the CEC for the last five years. Our 2017 foundational report on the characterization and management of FLW provided a first-ever look at the scope of this issue from a regional perspective and calculated that close to 170 million tons of food is lost or wasted in North America each and every year. That would be enough food to feed 260 million people a year, which it represents about 50% of our region's population. The energy wasted to grow this food is enough to power 274 million homes. What's more, if we address this issue, everybody wins. Taking action to prevent food loss and waste offers a rare triple win, that is economic gains, reduction of environmental impacts, and improved quality of life for those who currently lack sufficient food. Today we will hear from organizations and governments tackling this issue in a very, in several innovative ways from different vantage points along the food supply chain. I would like to thank all of you who have joined us today on this occasion and for playing such an important role to draw more attention to this very important issue. Have a good webinar and have a good day. Thank you. Thank you so much Richard. Thank you again for all the work and these really staggering numbers. Indeed, it's often important to have an idea of that I mentioned to be able to not just raise awareness but take action. Now we will move to one of our keynote addresses, which is by Maximo Torreiro. Now, if you've watched any webinars on food loss and waste or any topic on food and agriculture over the last month, he will be no stranger to you. Maximo Torreiro is chief economist of FAO and prior to joining FAO, he was executive director at the World Bank Group and led the division of markets, trade, and institutions at the International Food Policy Research Institute, IFPRI. Thank you so much for being with us Maximo and the floor is yours. Thank you very much and let me share my screen. So it's a pleasure to be here. So my job today is to to present about food loss and waste and what we are doing in the talk. So let me start by saying that today we have 690 million people undernourished and this number is going to increase in 132 million because of COVID-19. We have around two billion people that don't have access to food and in regular terms and we have three billion people that cannot access to healthy diets today. Despite that, we are observing in these pictures the situation we are facing in terms of food losses and waste. We are seeing how because of COVID-19 some food was wasted because there was no market for it or because they couldn't transport it and could be perished. So these are the things that that today we cannot accept and it's unethical given the situation many people are facing and the situation that we are facing in hunger. The job of FAO is trying to to be normative and try to bring the information that is needed to be able to make the correct decisions and the correct choices. So in 2011 FAO raised the issue that one-third of the food is lost or wasted and this was to create awareness of the importance of the topic and that was linked to the SDG 2.3 which is reflects the growing attention to the issue. But as a result of that there were two indices created. One is the food loss index which FAO is the custodian and which measured what is food losses which is basically from post harvest up to the wholesale included and what is food waste which is the food waste index which is responsible for NEP which is from the retail to the consumer. It's very important to make these two definitions because allow us to understand a little bit more this third and what was behind it and that allow us to also look in detail what has been the different stages of trying to understand what post harvest losses was and there has been several elements in the process and basically for example everything related to pre-harvest was not included in the process of understanding losses and many of the pictures I showed at the beginning those corn being destroyed in the field are problems that happened pre-harvest in the field and not necessarily only in the post harvest site but most of the focus in the frameworks that have been looked at has been in the post harvest site. So with that this helped us to come out with our food loss index which basically focuses on post harvest losses so from post harvest up to the wholesale included but also has the flexibility to move backwards pre-harvest but this let us come to the conclusion that there was around 14 percent of food produced is lost that means how much food is lost in the world and of course it varies among regions and different regions are more have more losses than other regions but that's something that finally we have a baseline and that's very important for these food loss and waste day because it's the baseline from where we are going to start so that we can from there start to monitor what are the actions and what are the impacts that we are having. Not only that it allows us to understand where to intervene in which commodities to intervene more and which in which commodities we need to put more focus and that's why we look at different types of commodities we look and by region we look at cereals and pulses and as you can see there are some regions where cereals and pulses have bigger high levels of losses and fruits and vegetables which both of them are essential for a healthy diet but the other thing we found is that the differences between countries are enormous and that's the deroginated that we have at the country level and we get into ranges we go to significant levels these these birth horizontal lines but again it allows us to understand where was happening and in which commodity was happening then we also allow us to understand where in the value chain was happening and that's really important because when if we want to resolve a problem we need to know where the problem is and it could be happening in the on the post harvest it could be happening in the storage facility which most of the interventions have been are linked to storage or in the processing and packaging like in COVID-19 the major problem we are facing is in processing and packaging because of the logistical problems of the moving of high value commodities especially or if it was happening the whole sale or retail so this information which now is being collected with a tool that we developed with artificial intelligence which is posted daily in FAO allows us to monitor the track by region in cereals and pulses we can do the same for fruits and vegetables and we can do the same for meat and animal production including fish where specifically in fish there is very little measurement and understanding of what are the levels of food losses and waste but our focus as I mentioned before is on food losses but again understanding where in the value chain the problem is I think is central and it's something where we need to put a lot of priority now just to give you an idea of the footprint as it was mentioned before by Richard of the footprint of losses by product category in serious and pulses we are losing 912 trillion calories we are losing 531 trillion milligrams of phosphorus which is essential for nutrition 219 of a trillions of of milligrams of magnesium we have a footprint a carbon footprint of 519 million tons of CO2 blue blood blue water footprint of 75 billion cubic meters and a land footprint of 79 million hectares and for each commodity we can now identify what is being lost so this is what is not only affecting consumers because they cannot eat these edible foods it's also affecting our climate but it's also affecting our environment and our resources which today are in a stringent condition so these are the numbers that help us to better understand the problem and how to resolve it but let me move now to the solutions and this here there are other surprises when we look at comparative losses in quantity of mace store using different storage interventions this was a huge review that we did with colleagues of us an initiative called sedes you will see that most of the interventions that reduce losses have been tested very few cases which are basically the plastic the political inbox which in cooperation of pesticides those are the ones that reduce and have minimum effects on losses but most of the other interventions didn't have such an effect and that's important because what is the size of the bar is telling us what is the weight loss or what is the damage the percentage damage loss and only very few interventions have the impact that we expect but even in those was very difficult to get information on cost effectiveness so we still have a lot of ignorance on what to do and a lot of solid evidence of how to resolve problems here we're looking at quantity and quality losses associated with the storage structure in potato and storage protectant in jam for example and in potato and jam again we see only very few cases in which we have a significant impact of reduction of losses that's the size of the bar both in quantity loss for potato and for jam so improve pit for example create a significant impact and cold rooms so storage facilities with cooling facilities which for potatoes is really important and very few countries have that deployed india started some progress on it we're working intensively right now in developing an storage corridor with cooling facilities in sub-saharan africa we believe that that could happen enormously to minimize losses in high value commodities and potatoes which is not a high value neither a staple is in the middle also required cooling facilities to be able to increase the time in which i can sell it and that reduces and increases the resilience of farmers to chops like the one we are facing in covid-19 and the same applies to jam and here looking at citrus at citrus packaging as citrus storage processing and mango storage protectant and again despite of the interventions as you can see many of these cases the sizes of the percentage of of losses in quantity is still are significant so the point i want to make by showing these interventions here you have tomatoes and onions is that we need to keep improving the innovations and that's part of the role of fao is not only to bring data it's also to bring innovations that we can scale up and technology so that with that we can resolve the problems we are facing why is this so important because the interventions that needs to be tailored to country context will help us to achieve sdg 12 of course but will also help us to improve food security and nutrition which is the core sdg sdg 2 will help us to increase productivity and economic growth and will help us to reduce natural resource and use of greenhouse gas emissions as i mentioned before so we have a triple win by by reducing food loss and waste and that's where we need to target but we need to target good interventions that could reduce impact now depending on the country context the interventions should be different and we should be thinking differently on them if we are closer to the farm the interventions will be more oriented to increase water quality and reduce water scarcity to preserving land that's what will improve because that's where i am reducing the use of those natural resources and that will create income generation for the farmer and will increase food availability but if i am closer downstream to the consumer i will get the major benefits because i will reduce emissions and i will reduce plastic contamination for example and that will increase the quality and nutritional content of food because i will have bigger diversity of diets and today we know that three billion people cannot access to healthy diets and i will also have better food distribution redistribution and reduce prices for consumers so depending on where i do the intervention the effects will be different and that's where we need to take into into consideration to improve food security nutrition actions has to be early on the supply chain in developing countries that will have bigger impact to improve productivity we have to build business cases and create the systemic changes needed but to reduce greenhouse gas emissions basically for greenhouse emissions we need to reduce waste which is at the end of the supply in the in the consumer side and for natural resources of course we need to be at the farmer level as i mentioned before so those are the types of interventions that we need to focus and we need to have several insights which are important not all food loss and waste reductions are created equal in terms of impact so not all of them will have the same impact inside number two it is difficult to manage what you cannot measure and that's why we are making a huge effort in measuring inside number three is for food security cheap technical innovations need in low-income countries to reduce losses in the upstream part and inside number four innovation important in managing the business case for food loss and waste reduction and for a broader investment strategy and policy coherence and if we are going to talk of build back better it's essential to find the business case and to track the private sector to be able to achieve that again for food loss reduction we will look at the point of focus in the producer side for waste reduction we are focusing more on affecting and reduction of emissions and understanding that the whole value chain and the different impacts across the value chain is central because it will have effects over prices and not all loss will be cost-effective for a producer we need to make the business case for the producer to to make the intervention if he's going to drive his maize properly not to face what we saw in the first picture he will require to know that the market will pay for that better improved maize which is aflotoxin free for example if the vegetables are going to arrive in good quality he needs to know the standards to be able to make the investments so all those changes are needed to be able to achieve what we want but again it's important to understand that the footprint the carbon footprint for example in this case of maize production along the supply chain could have a significant impact in the different levels but the major impact of any change in footprint will be at the consumption side on the waste side why because it's where most of the emissions have been already obtained or invested to be able to achieve the product arrive the consumer we have also developed the food loss and waste platform where we are bringing all the potential best practices there is an online platform that you can access online and here is where we're trying to put all the innovations and all the best practices that could be scaled up this platform was developed as a result of the turkey t20 process but he has been relaunched few months ago and feo is very active on that and finally we brought all this evidence and a special issue of food policy because we think it's important to have quality literature and quality review literature and all these articles are now published electronically and free downloading of all the evidence that we have collected 15 papers that can be downloaded on how we are doing things at feo thank you very much back to you thank you so much maximo for this thorough overview and really a global perspective after which we will now really come to uh north america as well and some key parts are really that food losses at least as important as food waste so on this day of awareness we should not forget to talk about food losses that we um should think about not just quantities but also quality data gaps and innovation remain and that interventions need to context specific we will now come to our second uh keynote by amando yanez who is head of the green growth unit at the cc who will tell us more about an exciting new campaign that the cc has launched recently um amando has over 25 years of experience on environmental and public policy design analysis and implementation on issues such as environmental economics sustainable development environmental information and indicators project development and the international cooperation and negotiation uh thank you amando the floor is yours thank you very much florian and and hello everybody i'm gonna share my my my screen so thank you again for having me here i'm really really happy to be part of of this joint webinar i think we are convinced that this food doesn't waste is a major issue we're facing and the way to to to go about it is working together so what better way to to to face it than doing these joint efforts so thank you again and congratulations to fao for its 75 uh anniversary and and thank you very much for having here so i'm gonna talk to you about the work that the cc has been doing uh for for the past years on food doesn't waste uh this this became a priority on 2015 when the when the three countries decided through the through its strategic plan to make it to make food doesn't waste a tri-national priority very much in line with sustainable development goals and and the goal of 12.3 and for that a group of of experts was created from from the from the three countries the steering committee which which gave guidance to the to to the strategy that the cc has been following uh this this group of experts i take my hat off to them a really really good good individuals very professional very engaged and and and and we then we come up with a very sound and and straightforward strategy to tackle this this issue and to gather work uh its logic is very simple it's the first the first stage of the strategy was to understand the issue at hand what we'll be facing what we'll be talking about food doesn't waste uh what does it mean for north america uh after that once we have a better understanding of the of the issue we develop tools and resources to to tackle it and and finally to to test and and and improve the the resources and make sure we we use them and throughout these these stages uh the idea was also to to work together to build partnerships to to to use the work that is already there to focus on on on north america actors and and to eventually empower empower everyone to do to do its corresponding bits so i'm gonna talk to you about these three stages and and the world that's been done so first understanding the issue at hand at the very beginning in the context of the north american initiative on food waste reduction and recovery and the north american initiative on organic waste diversion and processing uh the cc led by this steering committee work and develop these publications the foundational report white paper case study on what food loss waste means to to to our region uh as as rich are already mentioned that that's where the numbers started popping and approximately 168 million tons are wasted annually in north america uh which is just by itself an impressive figure uh it it for it means that uh maybe just a second because i can see this there you go uh it means that it cost to the north american economy 278 billion u.s. dollars and it's it's food that could have over 260 million people that's about half the population of the region which is really really impressive uh and and you you not only lose uh this this food is not the only thing you are losing but we waste so many more things uh with this food loss and waste uh with all the resources that go into growing and into the production into transporting uh enough water to fill seven million olympic-sized swimming pools uh 39 million uh square meters of landfill space that's about 13 football stadiums 193 million tons of greenhouse gases that are emitted needlessly and it's really impressive it's like driving 41 million cars continuously for a whole year uh enough power energy power to power 274 million homes uh a problem with with habitat loss and of course all the money that is used so it's it's a lot of resources that are being wasted i won't stop too much on on these figures but i all this information of this foundation and report the white papers and case studies all of this is available on on our website and we'll invite you to to visit them uh so we we kept uh uh understanding the problem this is just a glance of how how each country refers to attack per capita levels uh on food loss and waste uh and and this is through uh across the supply chain where where where is uh uh the food the the food loss and waste where where it happens as you can see it happens everywhere across the the supply chain of course consumption is a big thing but uh pre harvest post halber processing distribution the whole thing it's it's there food loss of course is focusing more on the earlier stages and and and waste goes more into consumption and but it's it's it's all around so understanding this is very helpful in order to to move into the into the design of of the resources and tools and of course understanding as well the causes of of food loss and waste within each of these stages is very important uh and and and important for the design of of what came next which is the the stage of the developing tools and resources which actually has two two components uh the measurement component which is focusing on on on measuring of understanding uh how how to how to quantify uh your bit of the problem your contribution to the problem where where are where are you uh independently on which stage do you are you in the supply chain to understand uh where are you having food loss and waste and what things can you do about it uh so uh a a technical report was developed as well as a practical guide which is a very nice tool which guides the users to understand their own processes to think about their own their own operation and to try to identify where we're having the the problems and what options are are are there and as case studies were done also in this effort to work closely with uh with with the different sectors of the economy uh one of those case studies is it was with Tox restaurant which we will hear later uh Gustavo talking about the experience um and then we also work on the on the education component which uh basically focuses more on on on the on the later stages of of the supply chain and and very much on bringing uh understanding knowledge to at the household level uh so so that we all start learning these little little things that can be done little tweaks in our daily lives to to do something about this problem and contribute to the solution so the food matters action kit was developed in this in this is a an educational tool designed for to bring awareness uh i won't stop too too too much on on the details but again this is available for for free on our on our website and it's really really nice it's an educational uh tool it's it's it's it's uh for educators uh but gives activities for for children and youth uh it's impact-oriented uh it it it recognizes the challenges and and and gives ideas of of of these little things that you can do at at home to to to to whom uh is this problem who i use the food matters action kit it's just simple it's relevant it's fun and it's free that's that's the great thing about working in in the sort of institutions that it's it's not about the money it's about doing things right and about working together so this is this is really a nice a nice tool and you can register on the website and follow your activities and and follow others you it's also about making networking finding other people that are also working at different stages of the of the supply change and and and working together okay so then we move into the third stage which is where we are at now it's to test these tools to to to improve them and and to promote their use and again it has two components on the measurement component uh the practical guide i talked to to you about we've been focusing very much on on on testing it piloting we've been partnership with with the with different actors across the supply change to test the this this this uh uh guide and many important uh companies are being involved in developing this pilot and also case studies uh and the idea is to with all this is to improve the guide and keep using and and offer this tool for for anyone that wants to to to to do something about it to understand their their own processes uh to to to be able to to to do this so so the idea is to empower them to to make the the the action their own and and to to keep working together and along this the the cc is it provides support every step of the way um and then on the education component uh we are currently on this uh the shrink food waste campaign as Florian mentioned it's about raising awareness at the at the household level um with that throughout this campaign which is uh its focus uh of course in North America and in three particular pilot cities which are Montreal uh Merida in Mexico and the Olympic Peninsula region in in in the US and the idea is is to through through to raise awareness through through through impact and then and then uh giving them giving people solutions on how to do something about it so we ask ourselves the question how would happen if those 168 million tons of food loss and waste were in in in in downtown Montreal and so you can see the the the food waste mountain that would cover downtown Montreal and through these shocking images you you start making the right questions and and the idea is to guide the people to use the the the the the the the kit at home to understand the little things that you can do at home we develop a series of electronic videos educational videos that are available online and and and they're being also distributed through social media well it's it's a whole uh 360 campaign using many many campaign tools and and and the idea is to do that so we invite you to to to join the movement to shrink food waste and and please do visit our our site and and feel free to reach out to work together on this and and again thank you very much for for for giving me the opportunity to participate and and and thank you again excellent thank you so much Armando so we've learned that CEC has plenty of measurement advice also for different stakeholders in North America as well as awareness raising materials which we encourage all of you to revise so now having heard a global perspective and some key numbers on North America we will zoom in a bit further into Canada the US and Mexico and we will hear from representatives from the three environmental ministries in these countries starting with Canada so it's my pleasure to introduce Michael Thunderpole who is senior program coordinator for the waste reduction and management division of environment and climate change Canada in his role he provides guidance and subject major expertise on a variety of waste related issues including food and organic waste and he has represented Canada on a number of international forums and food waste Michael thanks for being with us and the floor is yours well then everyone thank you and and hello um i'd like to to start off again by thanking everyone who's really taken place um together and make a difference as many of my colleagues have already mentioned by reducing food possibilities we can secure the green gas emissions lower pressure on water and land resources and increase productivity and economic growth doing so also increases the efficiency in the way that our food is produced distributed and consumed during my presentation i'll briefly outline some of the approaches to addressing food waste in Canada i'm just trying to advance my slide it doesn't seem to be working uh i think you have to click twice on it let's click with your mouse okay there we go thank you the government of Canada published the food policy for Canada in 2019 following extensive consultation with experts and stakeholders across Canada the policy represents a roadmap to help build a healthier and more sustainable food system in Canada it also represents the overarching policy under which the government of Canada is mandated to address food waste producing food waste is identified as one of four key action areas in this policy the others being community access to healthy foods making Canadian food a top choice at home and abroad and supporting food security in northern and indigenous communities the policy also includes the development of targets that align with UN sustainable development goals such as target 12.3 which aims to have food waste by 2030 to support policy implementation the government of Canada has committed 26.3 million dollars to reducing food waste which includes a food waste reduction challenge the fund innovative food waste reduction proposals across the supply chain and reducing food waste in federal facilities to lead by example an additional 50 million dollars has been allocated to support local food infrastructure and community-based non-profit organizations this may include for example improving capacity for cold chain management in food rescue efforts i think that's too far let me just yes there we go the government of Canada has also recently undertaken other activities to foster food waste reduction examples include publishing a document titled taking stock of food loss and waste production in Canada which highlights current actions taken by organizations across Canada's supply chain to reduce food waste and proposes potential areas for improvement hosting a national workshop on reducing food loss and waste which invited 100 experts from across the country to share ideas and discuss opportunities for measuring and reducing loss and waste and participating in food waste projects under NAFTA's commission for environmental cooperation which have culminated in foundational studies the guide on why and how to measure food loss and waste and an action kit to engage youth in reducing food waste in Canada the responsibility for managing and reducing municipal solid waste is shared among federal provincial territorial municipal governments in general terms municipal governments manage the collection recycling composting and disposal of household waste while provincial and territorial authorities establish waste reduction policies and programs approve and monitor waste management facilities and operations with this in mind many provinces have made commitments to address food waste some examples from Canada's most highly populated provinces include British Columbia's climate leadership plan which aims to divert 30% of food waste by the year 2030 Ontario's food and organic waste policy statement which strives to reduce food waste provide education and work with schools Quebec's politic view alimentaire which reduces food waste and promotes food donations British Columbia also recently announced its clean BC organics infrastructure and collection program that will invest up to 25.7 million dollars to support community-led organic waste processing infrastructure and residential organic waste collection programs several Canadian municipalities have have also in place or are developing food waste reduction plans as exemplified by metro Vancouver's regional food system action plan the city of Toronto's long-term waste strategy and Vita Monroe's zero waste strategy through the Pacific Coast collaborative British Columbia Washington Oregon California and the cities of Vancouver Seattle Portland San Francisco Oakland and Los Angeles are working together to build the low-carbon economy of the future as part of its work collaborative the collaboration adopted a regional goal to have food waste by the year 2030 in addition Nova Scotia Quebec Ontario and several municipalities in British Columbia including Metro Vancouver also have or plan to have in place organic waste landfill disposal bans which also target food waste while I've been asked to speak primarily to the types of engagement the Canadian governments have taken to address food waste I'd be remiss not to mention that many industries businesses and non-government organizations across Canada are demonstrating leadership in this area already this slide depicts just a few examples from across Canadian industry and businesses including donations of surplus food research to optimize packaging and storage the adoption of voluntary targets for reducing food waste improved inventory management systems and technologies to measure and track food waste and the adoption of related training and certification programs this slide highlights some of the examples of other organizations such as not-for-profit organizations rescue organizations universities recycling councils and waste management associations they include strategies to address food loss and waste research to better understand food loss and waste across Canada's food supply chain collaborations partnerships and consumer awareness campaigns and recovery and redistribution of surplus food that would otherwise be wasted the National Zero Waste Council founded by the Metro Vancouver in collaboration with the Federation of Canadian Mintes Valleys in 2013 has been particularly active in targeting waste production its work includes launching a Love Food Hate Waste Canada campaign which is modeled after the proven consumer awareness and behavioral change campaign in the United Kingdom Love Food Hate Waste Canada currently operates in major municipalities located in British Columbia Ontario and Quebec and intends to increase municipal coverage across Canada over time in closing I'd like to reiterate that everyone has a role to play in reducing food waste from farm to fork that governments businesses and non-government organizations across Canada are working to address food loss and waste with that I thank you for your attention and wish you and your families well during these challenging times thank you thank you so much Michael that was a very impressive overview of activities going on in Canada and one key thing is to understand indeed activities on a federal provincial and municipal level depending what the mandates there are in action now before we move south to the US just one reminder we will share all the slides with you and also recording of this webinar so you will receive the slides with all the figures and numbers in your inbox probably by tomorrow it is now my pleasure to introduce Maxwell Torney from the EPA who's an international environmental program specialist at the Office of International and Tribal Affairs at the US Environmental Protection Agency in Washington DC part of his work focuses on food loss and waste and resource efficiency and collaborating on these issues with partners through various fora including the CEC G7 and G20 so thank you for being with us Max and the floor is yours thank you Florian let me try to share my screen here are you able to see that yes looks great great thank you so thank you Florian for the introduction and thank you to FAO North America and the CEC for inviting EPA to be a part of this panel today I'm excited to share some of the work the US EPA has been doing on food waste reduction oh I'm sorry improving measurement of wasted food in the US has been a top priority for EPA for several years now today I will mention several efforts including one our federal interagency partnership and initiative two our engagement with other key stakeholders three our measurement efforts four sustainable management of food during the COVID-19 public health crisis and five our tools and resources available reducing food waste is an administrative priority of the agency we've joined with the US Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration as our federal partners on this topic together we are able to address many issues facing the food system today and reach a broader audience in October 2018 EPA USDA and FDA signed an interagency formal agreement and introduced the winning on reducing food waste initiative this initiative aligns efforts I'm sorry I got a notification I'll start for you I'm sorry uh so in October 2018 EPA USDA FDA signed an interagency formal agreement introduced the winning on reducing food waste initiative this initiative aligns efforts across the federal government to educate consumers engage key stakeholders and develop and evaluate solutions to food loss and waste in April 2019 EPA USDA and FDA released a federal interagency strategy prioritizing six main areas for action one enhancing interagency coordination two increasing consumer education and outreach efforts three improve coordination and guidance on food loss and waste measurement four clarifying communicate information on food safety food date labels and food donations five collaborate with private industry to reduce food loss and waste across the supply chain and six encourage food waste reduction by federal agencies and their respective facilities this year we updated EPA's interagency strategy webpage to include contributing efforts over the past year by agency within each of the priority areas I encourage everyone to take a closer look by visiting www.epa.gov slash sustainable dash management dash food and clicking on the link for interagency federal strategy on reducing food waste some highlights for EPA include offering new funding opportunities to support anaerobic digestion and also launching of an updated version of our access food opportunities map we intend to continue work outlined in the strategy and priority areas into the future we along with our federal partners know that we can't make significant changes acting alone but need and rely upon our external partners and key stakeholders some of those partners are included here on the slide we have been able to formalize our partnerships with refed and the food waste reduction alliance with agreements we also point to the us food loss and waste champions these uh this is a group of industry leaders who have made the public commitment to mirror the national goal and reduce their food waste by 50 by the year 2030. EPA also works with and recognizes businesses and organizations for outstanding achievement who participate in our food recovery challenge this is a voluntary initiative program or i'm sorry voluntary incentive program in which organizations and businesses set data driven goals implement targeted strategies to reduce wasted food in their operations and report results to compete for annual recognition from EPA our facts and figures about materials waste and recycling report shares data on the generation and disposal of municipal solid waste in the united states we currently estimate that over 38 million tons of food is sent to landfills or combustion facilities annually we have known that our estimates did not include many of the ways that food is managed beyond composting combustion and landfill such as donation anaerobic digestion or animal feed in response we are currently improving our methodology to estimate food waste and aim to apply this enhancement methodology for our next fact and figures report we know that implementing a successful management practice starts with measurement and that's why we're that's why we supported the development of why and how to measure food loss and waste a practical guide this guy was developed as part of the commission for environmental cooperation cc operational plan 2017 to 2018 and it's measuring mitigating food loss uh in waste project it includes easy to use measurement guidelines for every segment of the of the food value chain from primary production to manufacturing to the food service industry we can't ignore the food supply chain disruptions that have occurred as a result of COVID-19 for example the shift away from eating in restaurants cafeterias in schools has caused a much greater demand for food and grocery stores now more than ever it is essential that we prevent food from being wasted and help get excess food distributed to those who need it epi has posted a page listing some resources and practical tips for individuals and businesses titled recycling and sustainable management of food during the coronavirus or COVID-19 public health emergency which is available at www.epa.gov slash coronavirus our key federal partners fda and usda also have web pages addressing COVID-19 in 2017 usda cornell university and the food marketing institute developed an application called the food keeper app which offers users valuable storage advice about more than 400 food and beverage items in addition the application can remind you to use items before they are likely to spoil our regional representatives have acted as key players to bring entities together and find solutions to a number of issues that have resulted from the current pandemic in addition to the resources of I've already mentioned related to sustainable management of food during the pandemic there are a few more I want to highlight the further with food center for food loss and waste solutions site a national virtual resource center to find and share information about proven solutions and innovative new approaches for reducing food loss and waste the food matters action kit another product of the cec which provides several engaging activities for kids and youth ages five to 25 to learn about and take action on reducing food waste and the excess food opportunities map an interactive map that identifies and displays facility specific information about potential generators and recipients of excess food in the industrial commercial and institutional sectors and also provides estimates of excess food by generator type thank you very much excellent thank you max so we encourage you also to revise these epa resources and especially the food access map is a quite interesting tool which you should explore we will now move to mexico and we will have two speakers for mexico one is claudia sanchez castro and deputy director of soils at the secretariat of environmental and national resources as well as it's a consolas or the nelas who is head of the department of the promotion of sustainable development at seymar net thank you so much and over to you thank you florian good morning everybody well i'm going to i don't know if you can see our presentation but thank you very much for the fao north america and cac for us it's a big honor to be with you because we are always working with the cac and fao but like mr charon said not always is mexico in the big picture no now we are working together in this important event and well we are going to talk about the mexican food laws and waste initiatives i'm claudia sanchez it's in god sales and we are on the on this webinar our bosses adelita san dixente idiomit regina trijeros and we work on the ministry of environmental and natural resources well first one we are going to talk about the work that we are making for some years in 2017 seymar net column federal agencies and organized civil society to present the report full losses and wasting mexico this document was prepared by the world and in mexico in collaboration with the national polytechnic institute and they conclude the following an estimate annual food loss and waste of 20 million tons from the analysis of 79 products from the farm gate to the household it represented over 35 percent of the total food produced in the country this this is similar to the numbers of the fao and the greenhouse gases emissions generated from only 25 of the 79 analyzed food product is around 36 million tons of co2 equivalent annually growing 22 of the 79 analyzed food products that are then wasted or lost required near of 40 billion cubic meters of water per year and we have a working group it was coordinated by seymar net was established in 2017 to address the challenge of food loss and wasting mexico with the participation of the office of the president federal ministries like two rooms a agricultural welfare and seymar net and other public private and civil society agencies the consensus pointed towards the need for a concerted approach to address food loss and waste for which we're done in mexico and wrap in collaboration to this working group develop the conceptual framework for a national strategy on food loss and waste it identifies the hotspots where losses and waste occur along the food supply chain and provide an initial list of solutions for the short medium and long term that could help to prevent and reduce the food loss and waste and you can see in this part all the the collaboration that we have and about the agenda 2030 since 2019 the national institute of a statistic and geography in he coordinates a working group to design and implement the food waste survey it's to measure in quantitative terms the food loss and waste in the agricultural sector pre-harvest and perhaps service sector and households in this group a participant well seymar net the research center for sustainable rural development and food sovereignty from the house of the representative of the national congress the shopping groups autonomous university and the national polytechnic institute we are going to make some cases studies this year randomly across the country with the covid this it's going to be a challenge but we are going to start this this exercise and we hope to make the formal survey the next year the results will be a major input in reporting the national progress and for the sdg's 12.3 and we are working together in an intersecretarial group of health food environment and competitiveness the goal of this group is to have a fair healthy and sustainable food system the term of food loss and waste prevention and reduction is a key component of this group and it's componented this group of public ministries and agencies and we have a lot of interaction with the years for example with the fao mexico two years ago they made a food loss and waste measurement from three of the crops most important for our country maize bean and tomato and for example tomorrow is going to be for us the national day for the maize now it's the idea that's so important this this group for us and now we are working together with the fao and another agencies to generate a guide preventing and reducing the food loss of vegetables aimed to small and medium producers in mexico and i know that armando talked about the project of the with the cec but we want to point out the teamwork in mexico for example in the project of measuring and mitigation food loss and waste we work a lot with world ban in mexico nestle mexico the restaurant talks pro natura and food banks of mexico and now for for this project the preventing and reducing food loss and work for example we are working with the central market of mexico city is one of the most biggest central markets in the world so we want that they taste the the guide of why and how to measure the food loss and waste we are working with the campaign to the of education with food bank of mexico and do we have the the input of the institute of the radio in mexico because in some places it's not so easy to access to the to the internet no so we have to to think for another kind of country like is mexico and we have the support of the government of yucatan and the merida city and about the local initiatives well uh wrap and the food banks of mexico they are working in the past year and this year about to generate voluntary agreement wrap is an expert to to make this and they are trying to do cases studies based on good practices to generate a guide of for preventing and reducing the food loss and waste in mexico city and the interaction for example with the cac is if they if they are going to to go to another restaurant or hotel or hospital they can they can use the input of the cc use the guide no that's that's the interaction that that we need to do in all the countries work together and the secretary of the environment in mexico city they they are implemented as zero food waste certification program for food service establishment in mexico city and it's the path of of my friend it's a thank you claudia another important local initiative is the case we have in the city of merida in the state of yucatan the municipal government of this city in the southeast of mexico has implemented since 2018 a public program that recognizes the good practices carried out by local food service companies in environmental and social management the certification on the environmental and responsibility program is part of the commitment of the milan pack of which merida is a signatory and because it is a member of the international organization of local governments for sustainability the objective of the program is to warranty local strategies that promote food security security i'm sorry and contribute to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions next please to grant certification the program evaluates various various aspects of food service companies among which are the good practices they carry out to reduce to reduce food waste the certificate is valid for one year and there are four levels for certification gold silver bronze and special mention as you can see in this slide during the three years that the certification on environmental responsibility program has been implemented and thanks to the hard work of the municipality of merida the interest of the food service companies to register and become certified has increased increased sorry in each edition in the first year five restaurants were certified 25 were certified the following the following year and by 2020 44 food service companies sing up the program however due to covid-19 the municipality had to stop the certification process however the municipality has continued to provide training through webinars to carry on raising awareness among companies about the importance of this program i would like to conclude my participation by saying that the work that the municipality of merida is doing to raise awareness about the serious problem of food loss is fantastic and but it's but it's important to mention that merida's uh merida's perseverance and work that the municipality of merida sorry and willingness to cooperate in other projects that had to their initiative have have been key in this process and this is the reason the reason sorry why the semarnat or ministry of environmental are working with different initiatives because through the reinforcement of the action to make awareness we are decreasing the generation of waste and for our ministry for our ministry there is no better public policy in waste management that not generate it and if my partner agrees i think that that's all from us thank you very much for your attention and we only want to to conclude that for for our ministry it's very important to work together like like armando said it's free some some of the products we have the best working with us wrap the w r a so we need to to make the difference in each part of the chain no we have the the between countries between ministries with the private sector with the society so so for us it's very important the really really work team thank you very much excellent thank you so much claudia and it's for this great overview of activities going on in mexico on the federal level but also local initiatives and also about how you setting incentives can work to reduce food loss and waste and as michael said at the beginning indeed it's great to see the collaboration working together as everyone has a role to play so this concludes our perspectives from from the environmental ministries we will now come to a multi stakeholder panel and like the monaco butterfly on the cc logo we will fly back from mexico to canada actually and we will start with the private sector perspective from mexico which we will hear from gustavo paris and he is the senior vice president for sustainability and social responsibility at the gigante restaurant group he has been successfully implementing the high impact sustainability projects in one of the leading restaurant chains in mexico so thank you so much for being with us gustavo and looking forward to hear from you okay thank you again very much for the invitation therefore the gc ecc and the grass armando for the invitation and on this quick quick presentation i will share about our food and loss and waste reduction efforts you you are not familiar on this company outside mexico but we represent one of the largest restaurant chain groups in the country we have more than 240 restaurants with more than 30 million consumers we have five brands and almost 10 000 employees and we have the family dining place that is stocks then we have pan express as a fast food then we have seven beer factories and the restaurant on the side and then we have the taco taco shopping place and then we have shake shack for mexico now we are becoming a multi-unit brand and i'm talking about the efforts and on this on on this pyramid we start on source reduction and we start after we we map and we diagnose where we were having the problem on food and loss uh and then waste we started moving to offer our customers different types recipes in salad soups make Mexican recipes and peppers and then we serve bread only and marmalade only by demand we didn't put the bread at the beginning we just ask the our consumer how much are they going to uh want to have and after that we serve only the amount that the customer is willing to to eat on this effort only with with this small efforts we reduce 18 percent our food and loss waste issues then we have in pan express and shake shack we implement the food bank program as far as i know here we have almendra artist from the food bank mexico hola almendra and they have been great partners for us we have made more more than seven tons of food on donation in 2019 of course we reduce this year because of the of the closer restaurants but we understood how to work with food bank uh organizations and on our big beer factory uh restaurants we give a barley uh waste for feeding animals especially cows so as you can see on this very brief presentation we start in different stages with the different with the different companies that we have the different brands and um we start first understanding the issue and then to take actions and put actions for real for for example i was i want to share you a story i was talking with one businessman in the united states and i was talking about this uh a reduction on the on on the size of the recipes and these options for our customers and he said to me well for me in my company this is impossible because our value proposition is to offer text size portions and that means a lot of food so to be honest florian and all the people that are who are listening to me for me this was shocking so i understood that the first challenge is to change our mindsets governments the private sector and the civil society if you don't change if we don't change me as Gustavo myself and and the rest of the of the participants if we don't change our mindset we are never going to make that happen one example of the of a different mindset is our shake shack ceo for mexico he told me uh just uh uh one month after the first opening of shake shack uh unit here in mexico city he told me i hate waste especially wasting food so make it happen that we are not going to have food waste in shake shack in mexico so we we we make a partner with a food bank program the best one in the country and after we prove success we move to the panda express brand we approach to the to the to the panda express headquarters in los angeles and we ask them permission to implement a food bank program and now we have a food bank program in all the the the the the restaurants in here here in mexico and also the the the feeding animals uh we with all the waste of barley we have uh reduced 95 percent the waste of of of this kind of of of ingredient for for feeding animals so for me the steps is first a real tool from the top the ceo commitment then you have to understand your own business because as you as you can see we need to implement the same thing in the different brands we plan to implement it in in in different stages so first we understood our our business and how can we be more successful in our um waste reduction efforts then we diagnose evaluate options then decide and execute and walk the talk and we are now evaluating and justing and improving and just to finish i want to let you know that we have reduced more than 30 percent of all our food and lost the waste uh still there's a long way to go we are not at the end we are we are just at the first quarter of the of the effort our main goal for the next of this year 2020 is we are going to implement a zero waste program in two restaurants two talks restaurants in Mexico City and if we can make it happen in two hour main restaurants here in Mexico City then we implement in the rest of the chain in the in 2021 and 2022 and um we have to stop food and lost waste it is for us and it's for the planet and it's for the next generation thank you very much and uh this is my my email in case you want to get in touch with me uh in in short say thank you very much and all the best thank you so much Gustavo I think there was a very interesting overview of private sector initiatives in Mexico and I think your key message really resonated which is small efforts can make a big difference and there can be portion sizes the size of your plate um but also the mindset is important what is your what your proposition and what do you think consumers expected from you but probably also consumer value all these efforts in reducing food loss and waste so thank you very much for this overview we will now move to the US North to the World Resource Institute to hear more an academic perspective and looking forward to hear from Brian Lipinski who's associated at the World Resource Institute during his last 10 years with the World Resource Institute he has worked extensively on the topic of food loss and waste haven't served also a sleep author for the paper reducing food loss and waste and the recent CEC guide on how and why to measure food loss and waste thank you for being with us Brian and over to you thank you Florian and thank you everyone for joining us today and I'm I'm honored to have the the opportunity to speak with you so um what I'm going to focus on is just walking through some of the current efforts and initiatives that are taking place right now to reduce food loss and waste all the way from the farm to the fork so one of those items that we've already heard about a few times is the CEC practical guide to food loss and waste measurement why and how to measure food loss and waste um this was a document that was published in 2019 and contains a number of steps and tips on how to go about measuring and reducing food loss and waste and it walks through seven key modules starting with the why should you do it to begin with establishing a business case all the way to identifying some of the key impacts and some sector specific guidance depending on where you are in the food supply chain and so actually what we've been working on this year is what I've been calling a version 2.0 I don't know if that'll be the official title but that's how I've been referring to it and it's going to be an updated guide with making it even more user-friendly have a number of new tools and resources things like interactive calculators and info sheets that will help you to understand what's happening within your own operations and then new case studies from users in Canada Mexico and the US because this is a North America focused guide however we do believe that many of the lessons are relevant throughout the world and I know we have a number of folks joining from around the world today so please still check it out even if you're not in one of those three countries because I think you'll find really interesting information and one of those case studies that we already have on the site is actually from talks from Gustavo's company and their their efforts and what they've been able to achieve in such a short period of time I find really inspirational in this this fight and I think that the case study really makes that very clear and so the idea with this practical guide is that we're trying to make food loss and waste measurements easy clear and beneficial for the user and it's something that we're trying to I think it's already quite accessible and we're trying to make it even more so so one of the the calls to action I have for you today is if you're interested in reviewing or contributing a case study and if you're based in Canada Mexico or US please reach out to me at brian.lapinski.wi.org and we can see if we can find a way to incorporate your feedback or input because we really want to make this a big group effort and assist as many people as possible in their journey on measuring and reducing food loss and waste. Another exciting initiative that was just launched last week is known as the 10 by 20 by 30 initiative and this is a large private sector initiative that is aiming to scale up efforts to reduce food loss and waste throughout the supply chain and so what this initiative is is that at least 10 it was initially 10 and I know those of you who are counting will see 12 logos on the side there so it started with 10 of the world's largest food retailers and providers following the target measure act approach in which you set a target to reduce food waste you begin measuring food waste and then you take action to reduce it and they have each reached out to 20 of their priority suppliers of the food supply chain to do the same and so the goal the idea here is that instead of just having 10 folks doing this 10 companies doing this you end up with over 200 and moving that impact all the way up the food supply chain these are companies located all around the world this is truly a global effort and I have just a quick I'll show you this is not so that you'll be able to read every single one but these are all the companies that are involved that's just half of them the rest of them are on this next slide so again another what I find to be inspirational example of how companies are starting to take action on this and starting to really see the benefits of addressing food loss and waste within their operations because it's not just something that you do to be a good Samaritan or a good citizen it actually makes a lot of business sense too you can save a lot of money by reducing food loss and waste so that's one of the most recent major uh private sector initiatives that I'm really excited about and I think that's a good example for for future action and then finally what you can do at home um I've got a few examples here one of them I know Armando already touched on quite a bit is the cc food matters action kit and I will say this because I was not involved in the development of it at all I think this is a wonderful um wonderful toolkit wonderful guide it's it's I think it's very approachable it really brings home the issue very well there are some really fun activities like how you can do an at-home waste audit um and how you can make prepare foods in ways that reduce waste and lots of others really interesting and that with interesting activities that I think also make it a fun activity and and don't make this something scary and awful but something fun and something to work for together um an additional resource that is in a similar vein is um savethefood.com this is developed by the natural resources defense council it's focused on the us but again the the lessons are applicable around the world so you can see that there are a number of sections on planning recipes and storage and again this is something that helps you at the home level to look at food waste as happening in your own life and take action on that and save you money really that's you become a better citizen you become west wasteful and you're not flushing your your grocery dollars down the drain and then finally um one of the items I wanted to highlight even though uh says what can you do at work you've probably noticed from our backgrounds not many of us are in offices right now a lot of us are still having to work at home but you know hopefully that won't be the case for too much longer and one of the ideas that I would like to put forth is this notion of the office food waste challenge where we at the world resources institute um we're a global think tank i'm based in washington dc we set out to reduce food waste within our own office and the way that we went about that is we again followed that target measure act approach where we said okay we're gonna cut food waste in half we went about measuring it and then we started taking action to reduce that food waste and so we actually have guidance for how you can do each of these things um we in our office we have when people were in the office we would have quarterly food waste audit parties where we would all start digging through the trash and sorting it all out then afterward we would have pizza and beer and and look through our findings and so it's something that uh I think once we're all back into our workplaces something to keep in mind is that um we can talk about addressing food waste at the big institutional level at the company level but doing it at our work level and our home levels is also very important as well I think it was Michael earlier who said that we everybody has a role to play throughout the entire food supply chain and I think that's absolutely true so I will leave it there I know we're we're trying to leave some time for Q&A but please feel free to reach out to me at brian.lipinski.wi.org and yeah looking forward to your questions. Thank you so much Brian for this overview and also for this call to action that there are activities that all of us can do at home or even when we're back in the office in measuring our own food waste understanding it and there's plenty of guidance by WRI and also the CEC how to measure that so feel free to try that at home and see if you can reduce your own food waste. Now please before we go to the next speaker please be reminded to put your questions in the Q&A box and to which speaker they address to and we will come to the Q&A section in a moment. Now we are back in Canada and we're excited to hear from Justice Waltz who is Creative Director of Bruce a company upcycling imperfect produce into healthy snacks and beverages. Justice is an interdisciplinary artist based out of Toronto with a BFA in new media she's passionate about working towards more sustainable intersectional future. Thank you for being with us Justice and looking forward to hear more about Bruce and how you think we can engage more youth into food loss and waste reduction efforts. Thank you so much. All right sorry could you just enter the presentation please. Thank you. All right good morning as I said my name is Justice and I'm the Creative Director of Bruce. I'm super grateful to be speaking here on behalf of the team we're all really really excited to be able to join in on these conversations about food loss and waste reduction so thank you for being here today. Each year around 168 million tons of food is wasted in North America alone. As Armando mentioned earlier this amount of food equates annually to 193 million tons of CO2 emissions nearly 300 billion dollars US lost and could have fed 160 million people. The truth is the mountains of fresh food left to rot in landfills are just the tip of the iceberg. Our mission at Bruce is to challenge our current food systems and the stigma which surrounds spent and imperfect produce through education and yummy eats. We find a renewed purpose in the food we rescue where others see waste we like to see potential. So Bruce is a Toronto one run woman Toronto based woman run startup on a mission to revolutionize our food systems. We create wholesome plant-based products from upcycled ingredients and imperfect produce that are unnecessarily discarded as they make their way across the supply chain. So we want to have people feel good about what they fuel with while helping divert perfectly good food from going to the trash. Since our launch last June we've saved over 2,500 pounds of food from going to waste and we're just getting started. So far the response we've been receiving has been overwhelmingly positive with many first time triers becoming repeat buyers. Through the many conversations we've had we've been able to spark some curiosity about our current food systems and just how much food is grown that never reaches its intended destination someone's plate. Other people they often have this idea in their head about what food waste is that it's tossed because it's gone bad or because it was never good enough to begin with. But with Bruce we want to challenge this damaging notion of perfection or all or nothing thinking and show people that with a little creativity and care all that perfectly good food can actually be transformed into something both delicious and nutritious. So food ways can be very out of sight out of mind as a topic but once you get people thinking about how all this produce grows from the ground that it starts from the seed and that someone has to put labor into growing and transporting it the product becomes more than just food in their minds it's also water energy and resources. All food produced has its own history and our goal is to tell and advocate for that story. So our team sources and rescues imperfect produce across the supply chain from local farms retailers and wholesalers. We then craft nutrient dense products with intention serving both our customers and the planet so all of our products are 100% plant-based made without any fillers or additives it's all just good wholesome food. Our goods are handmade in small batches with love and care right here in Toronto to bring a little joy into your day with each artisanal bite as there's no shortage of food waste and loss though globally our model is easily scalable and can work in most cities around the world. However we see brews as more than just a business selling a product we're here to create change with that in our community promote low-waste living and inspire healthy discussions about how we as individuals can mitigate food waste in our daily lives. So we had the opportunity we had the opportunity to represent Canada as the winners of the youth innovation challenge earlier this year. It was such an inspiring experience to connect with other millennials trying to solve environmental issues by bringing new ways of thinking to life. This exposure was amazing it allowed us to share a mission of brews with important figures of North America and network with like-minded individuals hungry for change. Afterwards we were able to leverage the financial support provided investing in more digital content that we will use to grow our audience and bring more awareness around this issue. So we believe that the youth are the future and can ultimately be the catalysts of change. We want to create conversation around food waste that can help educate our youth today to have a better understanding of our current food crisis. We can then come together as a collective to work on sustainable solutions that are rooted in our own lives creating a new trajectory for our future. Currently there's a major disconnect with how we see our food. Most people are so far removed from the process of growing harvesting and transporting what's on our dinner plates that they lose sight of the true cost behind their meal. Our aim is to recundle that kind of connection and get people curious about the systems they support. By bringing forward fresh informative social media content we hope to inspire younger demographics to experiment with new ways of reducing waste at home ideally encouraging them to foster new habits with a broadened perspective of food waste. So what's next for us is creating more engaging content such as recipe videos workshops interviews with local farmers and documentation of how we as individuals are also evolving in our knowledge of this topic to share an intimate experience for our friends and family who are following along following us on this journey. So at the moment our team is currently taking time to grow our understanding of the where and why food waste occurs. Sorry this is just the the socials that we currently share examples of some of the content that we're targeting younger audiences with mostly on Instagram and yeah. So at the moment our team is taking the time to constantly grow our understanding of the where and why food waste occurs building relationships with farmers learning more about sustainable agriculture practices and we're volunteering at local urban farms in order to do this. Monique Chan the founder of the company is also working at farmers markets and has been for quite some time. The whole reason she started bruised in the beginning was she saw firsthand from working in restaurants and farmers markets how much fresh food was going to waste. So this has been really great for us to kind of just get a better perspective being able to talk to farmers and see like what makes spent arugula like not able to sell or why they wouldn't harvest perfectly good food for whichever reason. By fostering community around making small changes in our daily lives supporting each other through this journey to create a better world and welcoming and perfection both in ourselves and in the world in the food we eat we are hoping to spark a revolution towards a sustainable way of life. We strive to set a new norm as a plant-based company in how we operate and we're always working towards our ethos of providing feel good food for both the planet and people. If you're interested in following us on this journey please give us a follow on Instagram and Facebook at Bruisco. Feel free to check out our website for more exciting content to come. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much Justice for this interesting introduction to that you engage millennials hungry for change also on social media and indeed as you said fighting food waste can be delicious and very nutritious indeed. So this concludes our second panel and now we will move into questions and answers and since we just heard from you Justice maybe we can start with you. So there are two questions for you the one is how about packaging is there are there any ways that you think about sustainable packaging and also farmers if you're able to pay farmers for their surplus food? Yeah definitely so to answer the first question currently all of our packaging is completely recyclable so we use glass jars to sell our granola or imparfets and we're constantly looking for new ways to to be able to expand our product line while also keeping completely recyclable packaging. There tends to be a lot of greenwashing unfortunately in the packaging industry so there are a lot of places that have compostable kind of plastic compostable plastic which doesn't really make sense and in fact can't be composted in most local local centers so what we're doing is we're just trying to make sure that um on our end at least that we are sticking to our ethos and like really trying to look at the holistic approach of sustainability and not just you know what looks good potentially to to consumers or like what would be cheapest. Yeah um and then the second question sorry could you jog my memory? Sure it's saying justice is bruised able to pay farmers for their surplus and how much is appropriate? Yeah so we are able to pay farmers for our surplus we have close relations as we I mentioned earlier we have close relationships with these farmers and we like to talk to them and get to know them uh first and what um what usually happens is our founder Monique Chan uh will have those discussions with you know what makes sense for for the farm what makes sense for us how we can help mitigate any other costs like transportation um and such so it's kind of a an ongoing and evolving process but it is um something that we we definitely it's very important our relationships with our farmers so we want to want to keep in in good relations with them. Excellent thank you so much and now I have two questions uh for Maximo uh one is uh food loss research including measurement has continued past 2017 and suggests that baselines should be higher in fruit and vegetable crops if should this most recent information be incorporated so one about the baseline of food and vegetable food loss and waste and the second question would be if the current pandemic and the way people buy food through food deliveries has how does that has impacted food loss and waste okay so on the first question the the index that we have developed is a food loss index it's not a waste index that's UNEP responsibility and still the index is not ready on their side on our side we have in our baseline indicators for fruits and vegetables for fish meat and for cereals so we have that disaggregation which you can look into the webpage and you would see the indicators by commodity by country and by type of of commodity so that is there and yes especially in developing countries high value commodities like fruits and vegetables have higher levels of losses and stable commodities and that's something where there is significant improvement that can happen and that's what we are trying to pursue by identifying where in the value chain they occur regarding the the the second question sorry I forgot what was the second question the second question was is how the new ways of acquiring food through food delivery or take away COVID-19 yeah food was in waste so so there are two effects on COVID-19 the first effect was because of the logistical issues and that is already resolved there was a lot of increase in post harvest losses because of the lack of labor no migrant labor and that's something that we are documenting right now but that was already resolved the major problem that we're going to face on because of COVID-19 is not necessarily on the waste side on the waste side what happened initially that there was over purchasing no and that created some problems because of panic buying that is settled that's not longer there and that has been resolved but yes it's increased potentially could have increased potentially the waste but the major problem is the recession and why is a major problem is because most of developing countries are exporter of high value commodities like fruits and and mangoes and meat and those developing countries will be facing a significant reduction in the demand from the developed countries which means that a mango producer for example will have to live in the field there is the mango that is compliant with the specificities that were required by by importing countries like caliper size color and so on and so forward and being organic that mango doesn't have a local market basically the price of that mango in the local market will be too low so the producer will prefer to live it in the trees and that is what we call left in the field so our expectations is that there would be a significant level of losses in left in the field pre-harvest because of the COVID-19 in addition to the traditional level of losses that we already have in place. Excellent thank you so much and indeed as Maximo was mentioning it's key to understand that this global figure of one third of food loss and waste globally was an initial estimate in 2011 and that now FAO is custodian of the food loss index where the first global estimate came out last year which is 14 percent of food is globally lost and the other index is the food waste index which is under the custodianship of the human environment program where we're still waiting for initial estimates and these indexes are a lot more specific they allow us each country to identify I think 10 key commodities and really country specific understanding also of loss points so that's a useful clarification let's move on to a question for Amando you mentioned that 168 million tons is wasted in North America each year what strategies can be put in place to address food needs of hungry people? Thank you I think that the one thing that we really need to think about is that the world doesn't stop for us to think and we have to find the time to think so if we want to know what are the actions that we can take what are the best possible actions we can take for different things either preventing food waste or getting food to the plates of people that don't have food we have to try to understand how we're currently operating to find ourselves the time to be able to review our waste and identify those minor tweaks because most of them are really minor tweaks that we can do in our operation in our process in the way we eat in the way we buy in the way we produce food etc and start doing them and we'll find out that it's not only something that we have to do but it's something that actually makes sense from from from many points of view it makes sense to do it it's even economically logic to do it and we just need to give ourselves the time to think about it and identify these these little changes and that's what the the tools we are we are developing try to help with to to guess raise this awareness but also helping finding what can we do at our specific level to to solve these things excellent thank you and then we have two questions to Gustavo so could you describe the reaction of customers to smaller or different meal portion sizes and then also that many all-inclusive hotels donate their leftovers but this might be a possible health risk that's why they don't don't donate food if you could address these concerns about getting sued for food safety issues or recycling efforts in hotels but so first question what was the reaction of consumers to the changes that you implemented and second what can all-inclusive hotels do? Well on the first question most of our consumers reacted in a very positive way because we explain the reason for the all these change of portions but also we had this size by demand for example if the customers wants a big size because he big big big portion because he's going to eat it of course we are able to sell it to to him so we also we we have the option the the important thing that is not the first option the first option is to have a decent amount of of of meal but if you want a big size today of course you can have it but it's most by demand on the on the on the hotel industry with this all-inclusive or this buffet all you can eat for an amount of US dollars it's a huge issue for for example we three or four years ago we buy a major restaurant chain here in Mexico called California restaurants and they were only buffet and because of this huge amount of waste we stop it and we change it to talks to the tox brand we we we couldn't believe how much food do you waste if you have a buffet and you don't have a very efficient approach to reduce so in on a personal view I don't like buffets and I every time I talk to to the to the business peoples related to the tourist industry if I urge them or I try to inspire them to make a food bank program or something similar so for for me this is a big scene to waste food so I I try to talk with all the colleagues in the in the restaurant industry not only in Mexico but in all the countries we we we have partners and and and alliances to make this happen but you have to change your mindset or the the businessman has to change your mindset that wasting food is very bad not only for for for the money for them but for the planet and for the people excellent thank you Gustavo and our last question goes to Sima Nat Claudia it said and the question is if there are any types of sanctions at any stage of the food supply chain in Mexico for those who continue to waste and so is there is it rather a carrot or a stick approach in Mexico when it comes to food loss and waste well for the moment we don't have any sanctions I think that is the the other side we we need to give benefits if you have a donation if we need to improve better loss or on health to to don't receive any sanctions so for the moment we don't have we we have the the other side excellent we unfortunately out of time for the question and answers but thank you for your insightful questions and as mentioned we will share the power points and that often also include the contact details of our speakers today so feel free to follow up with them directly now before we come to closing remarks I would like to ask our speakers for their key takeaway from today's discussion in 30 seconds or less so what is really your key takeaway if people only remember one thing so please be really brief just 30 seconds or less think about a tweet link and let's start with Wim Lendron my pitch would be very simple move to action and in initiating action understand the signs and the evidence behind it contextualize you can't have a cookie cookie cutter approach countries differ situations differ types of food differ so we have to have a very scientific way in approaching this that said it is high time that the world woke up to the benefits which can accrue at such small cost if we take to food loss and waste reduction seriously excellent thank you Melinda over to you Richard much like a climate change I think our best messengers on this issue are younger audiences young people we were quite successful last summer we attended the international boy and girl scout jamboree where we had a number of important interactions with the young leaders and they took our message and let's not forget how they can be probably the best messengers so that's my takeaway thank you maximum we have the floor there are three wins by reducing food loss and waste and that we need to move fast and act as Melinda said I think that what is happening today in terms of food loss and waste is unacceptable it's unethical and we need to change it there is no way back and we need to have a good baseline over which to track performance and see how we can progress in the future excellent thank you thank you we just say that this is a true issue it's real and we'll have a role to play and it makes sense to play it and we are all here to play to to play it together thank you thank you very much Micah from my perspective it's about working together um recognizing that government we're talking about organizations talking about industry businesses we're talking about consumers in general understanding how we how we change our behaviors and recognizing acts that years can have on the environment on society on the economy it's about moving towards a circular economy being more efficient with the way that we manage our households our businesses with our production environments etc etc so I think it's about education and more importantly it's about changing behaviors thank you then let's go to Max thank you Florian um I think it's important to keep in mind that uh anyone can choose to take small steps in their everyday lives to help us achieve the goal of reducing food loss and waste by 50% by 2030 businesses and organizations may be interested in joining the food recovery challenge or the US food loss and waste 2030 champions as I've mentioned and we also encourage youth to access the CEC food action toolkit which is available online in in English French and Spanish so it's a great tool to use thank you then let's come to Mexico Claudia and it's a well we always talk it's a win-win know we need to all the people be participating in this and that they always say small changes can make a big difference so we need to work together thank you thank you very much then Gustavo you have the floor yeah thank you I think this is a matter that concerns all humanity we have to prove ourselves that we can do better know the planet needs us and the vulnerable people needs us and let's have a better version of ourselves and more importantly let's let's walk the talk thank you very much Florian thank you Brian yes my key takeaway is that there's not going to be any one person or one action that's going to solve this issue it's going to be something where we need lots of smaller action adding up to something big and it's on those of us who are from policy making or businesses or other organizations that are involved in this issue to make it as easy as possible for others and not feel like an extra burden but something where they see the benefit for themselves excellent thank you and justice yeah um so from bruised I think we just want to encourage everyone to embrace imperfect in your everyday lives and that goes beyond uh imperfect produce but also our own imperfections right we need everyone making small changes not a few people doing things perfectly so be imperfectly zero waste be imperfectly vegan you know working towards a greater goal is great and so like so as long as you are making room for change that's the most important important part and by doing it ourselves we would be inspiring other people as well yeah thank you excellent thank you so much now before we let you go we have one important item of the program which is closing remarks by Lena Paul and she's representative of the united nations food and agriculture organization in mexico since august 2019 she has also served as a vice minister for environment and natural resources of the republic of el salvar law from 29 to 14 and minister of environment and natural resources from 2014 to 19 so thank you so much for being with us Lena Paul and the floor is yours now thanks to you and what a fantastic and inspiring webinar the husband thank you so much to cc and pao to organize it to organize this dialogue and food loss and waste has received increased attention over the last decade in public policy measuring methodologies regulatory frameworks and in general and the public agenda the COVID-19 pandemic has led to chips about where and what we eat as well as chips in food production and consumer demand which has exacerbated the issue of food loss and waste and has made it clear that we need to position even higher on the global agenda there is no room for food loss and waste in this time of crisis and we must take this opportunity to build back better and reduce excessive levels of food loss and waste in our food system as a whole reducing food loss and waste is a powerful means to strengthen the long-term sustainability of our food system and and environmental also social and economic dimensions we learned from the governmental panel that significant policies and initiatives are currently underway to address food loss and waste in Canada United States in Mexico we have learned that important action are being taken on the municipals of national and national level and that multi-stakeholder multi-stakeholder action is key we agree that everybody has a role to play reducing food loss and waste require the attention and action of all from a small and large food producer to supply to food supplies change stakeholder to food industry retailers and consumer everybody here have a role while significant data gaps remain to design the best evidence-based policy it is clear that there are synergy and trade-offs in food loss and waste reduction effort the strong and positive food security impacts are likely to be have by reducing food loss early in the supply change in particular on farm loss in country with high levels of food insecurity for environmental sustainability it is better to intervene at critical loss point that occurs downstream on where most of the environmental damage take place on a given supply change or in key points where we can prevent environmental damage to happen there's a robust business case for company countries cities and people to reduce food loss and waste to keep on creating the best possible evidence data collection is key we must keep on developing and strengthening data collection globally fractions are required now globally and locally to maximize the use of the food we produce under a circular economy model the introduction of technology innovative solution like e-commerce platforms new ways of collaborative working and good practice to manage food quality and reduce food loss on waste are key to implementing transformative change governments and decision makers must target investments and create incentives like in Mexico to bolster effort to reduce food loss on waste and ensure food security of the poverty and vulnerable they can also play a key role on educating consumers we can see now and on the mini note use buy and best before day marks to ensure that they are used appropriately toward reducing household food waste private actor of the food supply change must scale up actions to reduce food loss on wasting the supply chains through innovation and sharing practice on food loss the food hall say in a retail sector must step up if its efforts to donate surplus food to charities and food banks otherwise generating renewable energy and compost when necessary consumer must stop and store their food properly in the household and pay attention to daily factors which lead to food waste shrinking our personal food waste mountain is easy and can have a big impact follow shrink food waste and flw day on social media to learn more about how you can help sector within the food supply chain can get support from the cc and fl and why and how to measure and reduce food loss on waste youth is a key driver for behavioral change engage with youth with simple action with the cc food matter action kit this is a special moment for f.a.o we are not only celebrating the first ever day of awareness of food loss on waste during times of a pandemic but also f.a.o's 75th anniversary as we observe world food day on october 16th we invite you to join us in recognizing food heroes farmers and workers who are making sure that food makes it way from farm to fork even on a disruption as unprecedented as the current COVID-19 crisis the preserving access to safe and nutritious food is and will continue to be an essential part of the response of the COVID-19 pandemic and reducing food loss on waste place a key role please be part of this act now thank you so much thank you so much lina for this excellent summary of our discussion today for this calls for action and with that there are some final announcements i quickly wanted to make the first is tomorrow f.a.o north america and cc will host a twitter chat on food loss and waste which is you can look for the hashtag flw chat so please join us tomorrow between 10 and 12 uh sorry 10 and 11 am uh edt for the twitter chat and share your insights and solutions uh also tomorrow is a webinar a global webinar at that f.a.o headquarters is hosting on the occasion of the first ever day of awareness on food loss and waste which we can you can register with many high-level speakers and last but not least we wanted to of course also already think invite you to think about world food day which is coming up on 16th october plan your events maybe in a digital space and to observe also world food day which is another key occasion to highlight food loss and waste reduction initiatives so with that let me thank all of you um our participants for joining us today for your insightful questions thank you to the cc and your whole team for partnering with us and making this webinar a success thank you to the interpreters which i i saw in the chatbox are doing a fantastic job thank you so much for that and thank you to all my colleagues at f.a.o who have contributed to today's event thank you again for joining us and stay safe and stay tuned