Have you noticed the flurry of activity and media coverage about food waste? At some point during this recent lull in my blog, it felt like everywhere I turned I encountered an article or conference or event related to individuals, companies and governments making efforts to use what is normally tossed.

A few highlights:

• At the Blue Hill WastED pop-up in March, I dined on fried fish cartilage, salad made from discarded fruit and vegetable peels, and a vegetable burger that was a total mashup of scraps — from the vegetable pulp to the bread trimmings that made the bun. Nearly every regional media outlet reported on the restaurant.
  
  

  

  
  
  Chefs across the world are following suit — this past June, a Barcelona restaurant served an inspired four-course “Gastro-Rescue Dinner” that took advantage of tomato squeezings, misshapen eggplant, and the meat scraped from skeletons of filleted salmon, to name a few.
• “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life” is the theme of Expo Milano 2015, the Universal Exposition which runs from May 1 – October 31, 2015 in Milan, Italy and expects to have more than 20 million visitors. For three months, some of the Expo leftovers are being served to needy people in an abandoned nearby theatre, in partnership with the local Catholic charity. 40 prominent chefs will pitch in for one of the months, creating gourmet meals out of the leftovers.
• Chef Dan Barber is being recognized further for his book, The Third Plate, now a James Beard Foundation Book Award winner. From reading it, I learned how complicated it can be to fish, farm, cook, serve, and eat responsibly, and how deeply connected our menu preferences are to the earth’s ecological system.
• Kangaroo tail, anyone? Chef Curtis Stone is a champion for maximizing ingredients, which he showcases at his James Beard Nominated LA restaurant, Maude, also a James Beard Foundation Award Nominee.
• Governments are taking action to reduce food waste! France’s legislative body passed a measure that bans supermarkets from destroying or tossing edible unsold food. When foods were nearing “sell by dates,” supermarkets found them difficult to sell and therefore threw them away–and sometimes went to extreme measures to keep foragers out of the bins. The law requires the stores to donate food to charities or for animal feed; otherwise they face fines and jail time. Here in the U.S., Massachusetts’ commercial food waste ban went into effect on October 1, 2014. The regulations require institutions and businesses disposing more than one ton of organic waste per week to donate or reuse the edible food and compost the rest. (One ton still seems like a lot, does it not?)
• Blue Apron continues to expand its following. It announced $135 million in new funding this June. According to Eater’s published analysis of its prominence, “Blue Apron built its empire on the idea of reducing food waste.” Not only does it help customers be more efficient, it also supports sustainable farming practices among its farmers.

I’m encouraged to think that public awareness is increasing. The issues aren’t brand new, of course, and have been in the news for many years. Last month, the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF) released the results of its 2014 research on U.S. Consumers’ perception of food waste. In terms of knowledge and awareness, 42% of respondents said they saw or heard information about wasted food in the previous year. 16% looked for information about reducing food waste. 24% of respondents characterized themselves as “very knowledgeable” about ways to reduce their personal levels of food waste, and 38% say they are “fairly knowledgeable.” Do more people know more in 2015?

It can get lonely to sit at my computer and read and write about food waste concerns and my personal quests. I’m thrilled to reach any one person with my blog, and to encourage any friend or acquaintance in person. But do enough people really care? What else can I be doing?

I’ve been fortunate to meet and discover a growing community of regular people who are creatively and smartly making things happen. They keep me inspired:

• Finally, a grocery store chain in the United States (out in California of course) and a start-up venture called Imperfect Produce plan to sell less-than-perfect produce at a discounted rate. This adds value to the perfectly edible product farmers sometimes find easier and cheaper to throw away (Via NPR)
• Others are creating a marketplace for surplus food; through a website or app, they connect those with excess food with organizations poised to use it. In Massachusetts, there’s Spoiler Alert. In Northern California, there’s CropMobster.
• What about all that packaging we waste? A pair of entrepreneurial designers created a product called Loliware, which are flavored, edible, biodegradable cups that serve as an alternative to single-use cups that get tossed into a landfill.

These are the champions! I can’t wait to see what’s next.