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Kroger Launches Zero Hunger | Zero Waste Plan
Effort aims to provide three billion meals by 2025
3 Min Read
Armed with a goal of ending hunger in the communities it serves and eliminating waste companywide by 2025, The Kroger Co. launched an aggressive Zero Hunger | Zero Waste plan.
Rodney McMullen, Kroger's chairman and CEO, says it doesn’t make sense that more than 40 percent of the food produced in the U.S. each year goes to waste while one in eight people struggle with hunger.
"No family in a community we serve should ever go hungry, and no food in a store we operate should ever go to waste," he urges. "As America's grocer and one of the largest retailers in the world, we are committing to doing something about it."
Kroger is also crowdsourcing for solutions, asking communities, partners and other stakeholders to help provide ideas, feedback and best practices as the effort evolves.
"We don't – and we won't – have all the answers," says Jessica Adelman, Kroger's group VP of corporate affairs. "While we are clear about our vision, we are flexible about how to get there. We are working closely with both Feeding America and World Wildlife Fund (WWF), our longstanding partners, to develop transparent metrics to track our progress."
Kroger's visionary Zero Hunger | Zero Waste plan includes the commitments outlined below, in keeping with the company's Purpose to Feed the Human Spirit:
Establish a $10 million innovation fund within The Kroger Co. Foundation to address hunger, food waste and the paradoxical relationship between the two.
Accelerate food donations to provide three billion meals by 2025 to feed people facing hunger in the places Kroger calls home. In partnership with its customers, associates and other partners, Kroger has donated one billion meals via combined food and funds donations since 2013.
Empower Kroger store associates to identify meat, produce, dairy and bakery items for donation that remain safe, fresh and nutritious. Last year, Kroger donated the equivalent of 46 million fresh meals to local food banks in addition to dry goods and shelf-stable groceries.
Advocate for public policy solutions to address hunger and to shorten the line at food banks, lobbying for continued funding of federal hunger relief programs, and for public policies that help communities prevent and divert waste from landfills, including recycling, composting and sustainability programs that can be scaled for maximum impact.
Achieve all Zero Waste 2020 goals outlined in the annual Kroger sustainability report.
Eliminate food waste by 2025 through prevention, donation and diversion efforts in all stores and across Kroger. Develop transparent reporting on food loss and waste.
Join forces with both new and longstanding partners to identify opportunities, leverage data, and determine where by working together Kroger can help the most.
Transform communities and improve the health of millions of Americans by 2025 by making balanced meals more readily available, sharing scalable food waste solutions with other retailers, restaurants and local governments, and working within Kroger's supply chain to reduce farm-to-fork food loss.
"Zero Hunger | Zero Waste is a vision for the America we want to help create with our associates, customers and stakeholders," McMullen affirms. "This is our moonshot.'"
"We recognize we have a lot of work to do," he adds. "But we know when Kroger's more than 443,000 associates put their passion to work to make something happen, we can uplift our communities, the planet and each other."
See a video outlining the plan HERE.
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