WWF Expert Pete Pearson on Food Waste & What Can Be Done About It | Live from CGF 2025

Hello, everyone.

Welcome back.

This is Omnitok Retail coming to you live from the Consumer Goods Forum here in Amsterdam.

I'm Anne Mazinga.

And I'm Chris Walton.

And joining us today, we have Pete Pearson, the vice president of Food, Food loss and waste at wwf.

Pete, welcome.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah, it's nice to have a fellow American standing between us.

We haven't interviewed any Americans yet.

It's our first one of the day, right?

Yes, first Yankee, no accent for us, right?

Yeah, no.

All right, but so food waste, let's start with.

So it's a global issue, you know, why.

But why is it a global issue?

Why is.

Why should it be such a concern?

Well, one, everybody eats.

Last I checked, it's a necessity.

You know, clean air, clean water and food.

Everybody has to have it.

And for us at World Wildlife Fund, a lot of the times I get questions of why do we focus so much attention on food loss and food waste?

And actually, when you look at the statistic, it's about 40% of the entire global food supply chain is lost or wasted, which is a number that just blows people's minds.

And when you look at that waste, what does it take to grow food?

It takes a lot of land, a lot of water, a lot of resources.

And often it's the sacrifice of wildlife habitat that is a big part of food production.

And so it's a major goal for us, like food system and land use.

And land use use change is a major, major program at World Wildlife Fund because it has a direct impact on nature.

Yeah.

You just launched something called the Global Farm Loss Tool with cgf, the Consumer Goods Forum.

Tell us a little bit about that and what that is designed to do.

So a huge amount of food actually never leaves the farm.

And when you look at all the food that doesn't even get into the marketplace, a lot of times it is just because it maybe has blemishes or it's not marketable the way we like to typically see it even go.

It's just like it just sits in a.

It'll get tilled in the soil or it's lost in transition or.

Or in transportation.

Oh, wow.

And so, yeah, so a big part of this is actually looking to measure it.

Okay.

Looking to see how much is there, not from an academic perspective, but to find marketable options for how do we get more edible food back into the supply chain and find alternative channels for it to be sold and to go to people.

That's the ultimate purpose.

Is that where like an Imperfect foods comes in or one of these companies.

Okay, absolutely, yeah.

And again, the goal is when you have such a huge footprint of water, energy, land that goes into food production, you want to see that food go to people.

Yeah, right.

We live on a planet now where we're having 8, 9, potentially 10 billion people.

There is not there, there is not a margin of error here.

Like when you have to feed that many people on a planet with finite resources, you can't afford to have loss of food at any part in the supply chain.

So to that point, one of the things I've heard you, I've talked, I read.

Actually I haven't heard you, I read about this as we were doing the preparation for this interview that you've called food waste a gateway issue to sustain sustainability efforts.

Is that part of this?

Or what did you mean, what do you mean by that as an organization?

So working in the, in the world of waste, I think it's a very non contentional issue.

I think everybody can agree, right?

That nobody likes to see waste.

Yeah.

And so what that does is it forces people to look at what are the environmental footprints of the food system and to address it from the perspective of reducing waste, which everybody can agree on.

And it gets governments on board, it gets companies on board.

Like it creates this platform where you have a consensus, but then it forces that reflection on how intensive food systems are in terms of resource use on the planet.

And what have you, what, like what have you developed or been a part of in terms of partnerships that has, has, has been productive to that end.

So when I first started this job and I actually had my 10 year anniversary in this job a couple days ago.

Congrats.

Yeah.

I had the huge luxury of WWF having all of these corporate partnerships all over the world.

Yeah.

One of the first ones I was part of was our Hilton Hotels partnership.

And so we immediately started working in the hotel sector and looking at how much food waste is generated with hotels and venues all over the world.

And you know, that grew to a, to a platform and a program that wasn't just with Hilton, it was with Marriott and the entire industry.

And so I think that's one thing that's a really great part of WWF is companies like to work with us.

We have this great brand and platform where it brings people in, it convenes groups.

And so the hospitality industry is one that we've been working with for a long time.

That's led to retail partnerships, that's led to manufacturing partnerships, cgf.

I mean it's.

Yeah, it seems like the hospitality industry does take the lead on that type of thing.

I mean, I've noticed here, like in, in Europe, in our travels the last two weeks, like I've not seen a bar of soap in any hotel that I've been in.

Like, you know, as an example.

Yeah, they're, they're an industry that they, I've noticed they like to work together pre competitively.

Okay.

It's natural for them to do things together.

I come from the retail grocery industry.

Yeah.

Sometimes it's really tough to get that industry to like work pretty competitively together.

But you know what, they've done that.

On the issue of waste, and you're starting to see that with waste issues.

Is that issue true?

More intra country versus inter country?

I know that is true in the US Maybe because that's the context that I grew up in.

Right.

But I'm sure when you look at it globally, if you're not in the same retail footprint as another competitor, there probably wouldn't be a reluctance to work together.

You know, you're more apt to share.

We heard that from someone from Singapore this morning.

That's why I was asking the question.

Yeah, interesting.

Yeah.

Well, Pete, I'm, I'm curious.

You know, we, I think we often hear the term food waste, especially in America, and I think that we think it's, you know, specifically related to hunter hunger.

Not so much the impact that it has on the environment.

But can you kind of break down some of the impacts that this is having beyond, you know, just food going to waste and not being able to feed people?

Like what's happening with the environment?

What other impacts does that have?

So I mentioned up front the embedded resources that go into food production.

And I think it's really critical to recognize that it's not just the fruits and vegetables that we grow, but it's actually think about all of the feed that we grow for animals.

That's a huge environmental footprint.

And so when you waste protein or seafood, that has a magnified impact on the environment.

But then the other part of it is we take all of this food that we grow and a huge amount of it we dump into holes in the ground in landfills.

And so when we do that, when you have landfilling of organic material and food waste and you bury it, it creates methane emissions.

It actually ranks third globally in terms of largest amount of methane emissions behind fossil fuels and cattle production.

Production.

Right.

And so then you're thinking, oh my God, like, not only are we just wasting the resources to grow the Food that we don't eat, but we're also putting it in the ground, creating methane emissions and not composting it, not recycling, not turning those nutrients into something else to feed soils.

I mean, it's just bonkers.

The circularity component of this is really key and we've got to start changing how we deal with food and organic material.

End of life.

Yeah.

I mean, I asked you that question to hear the worst case scenario in the hopes that we can get through some of your suggestions or end on a positive note here of what's possible.

What needs to happen then for the audience listening, for the people here at Consumer Goods Forum to make that change?

Yeah, well, I was really enlightened because literally, like right when I sat down at the morning plenary session, Max from one of the companies, McCain was talk, we, he was talking about the importance of measuring farm loss, having these alternative markets.

So like the message is getting there.

These companies are actually putting this into practice.

I think the tricky part for us looking forward is we've got to make a massive investment globally on the infrastructure that it's going to take to turn this into a circular food economy where you have cities that are composting, cities that are taking and separating organic waste.

You're talking about billions and billions of dollars, if not trillions of dollars to make this investment.

We've got to figure out how that's financed and how you pay for that.

Right, Right.

It's easy in some places where you have the tax revenue and the dollars to do it.

Right.

But in developing countries, some of them don't even have basic waste management period.

Right.

Let alone being able to separate it and do, you know, advanced things with it.

Right.

So if we look at the US market, which you were talking about a little bit before, you know, and for our audience, which is primarily US based, and for all our audience back home who's watching this live, you know, as, as we record this from cg, what are some of the best practices that the grocers or the CPGs in the United States can, can start to do now?

Yeah, I think the biggest thing is separate food from the trash from the waste stream and treat it as something different.

Like you have to have that separation that food is never trash.

And you have to start looking at measuring and understanding how much you generate because that creates that feedback loop to then start to work on prevention, but then to also work on getting it out of landfills.

Okay.

And I imagine like weigh it and monetize, like how much money is being lost Then in addition to that, is that the case?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean, especially for retail.

Like, this is really just a good inventory management practice.

You know, you want to see, why is this stuff going in the trash?

How can we improve our ordering or improve our practices?

And so.

But there's only so much you can prevent.

Eventually you're going to have food and organic material that has to go somewhere, so you got to get it out of the trash.

A lot of states have done a really great job with this.

You have the West Coast, Oregon, Washington, California.

You know, they've been in this game for a long time with waste management and organic materials.

But we need all 50 states to do this.

And we've got to have the policy down to state and city level to make the investment and to see that it happens.

Got it.

So I want to make sure I understand that, too.

So you say if I'm like, so back in my former life, I used to run Target Store.

So if I'm running a Target store, I should take the mindset of no food ever goes in the garbage in that Target store.

Is.

Is that the.

Is that what you're saying?

Or explain that to me.

That is what I'm saying.

Like, that is what you're saying.

It's like we need to get to a point where food and organic material is always separated and never part of trash.

Okay.

Now where it gets difficult is you might have a Target Store.

Yeah.

Where the city does not do composting or they don't do that diversion.

And that's where we need companies to help us advocate for policy shifts.

We've actually created a really effective group called the Zero Food Waste Coalition, which is working on this nationally at the federal level, but also now working down to state level to see these policies start to be modeled and state legislation to happen.

And I would think to be like a company of the size of Target or like a Walmart or even a large grocery, they probably have the ability to still do this and then kind of push it forward at the city level or figure out, you know, what.

What the correct disposition is of that.

It's not waste anymore in a lot of ways, as you're describing it.

But where to.

To put it at the end of the day, is that right?

I think those companies do okay.

The grocery stores do.

The hotels do the food service.

We've been working a lot with schools.

Okay.

And I love this part of it, because when you get elementary school kids and youth involved.

Yeah.

State legislators listen.

Yeah.

You know, we did it.

We did a campaign in Maryland where they sent a School, sent 9,000 postcards to the state legislature, and they got a bill passed on compost.

I mean, it's amazing.

Parents do it, too.

Absolutely.

And I'll tell you, when you're in meetings with.

With a congressional office or on the Hill and you have Walmart or Kroger or Albertsons backing you up in that meeting.

Yeah.

Carries a lot of weight.

And people listen a lot more.

I bet it does.

Well, Pete, this has been so, so interesting.

Thank you for breaking this all down for our audience back at home.

For all of you who are following along.

If people want to know more about how to start to put these things into practice in their own cities and states, is there a good place for them to go to or to reach out to?

Oh, there's so many good places.

So I would look up the Zero Food Waste Coalition.

That's one place.

If you're interested in things like the school program, we have something called the Food Waste Warrior program.

Okay.

So you just.

Food Waste warriors, wwf.

And then one more for the hotels is something we call Hotel Kitchen.

Okay.

So tons of resources.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Lots of things.

Thank you so much, Pete.

This has been wonderful.

Thank you so much to Fusion Group for again bringing us all the coverage here from the Consumer Goods Forum.

And until next time, Chris, be careful out there.