Households

Up to 40 percent of the U.S. food supply—worth $218 billion—goes uneaten each year. It’s a problem that costs the average family of four $1,800 annually. This takes an enormous environmental toll in terms of water, energy, agricultural chemicals, and labor that go to waste when food is discarded. Unbelievably, at the same time, one in eight Denver residents does not have a reliable supply of food.

In 2018, DDPHE launched its Food Action Plan, a direct result of the City’s Food Vision policy tool to guide food system policies. The Food Action Plan advances our objectives of reducing the number of food insecure households by 55 percent and cutting the volume of food waste in residential garbage collection by 57 percent citywide by 2030.

We recently partnered with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Montbello Organizing Committee to run focus groups to collect qualitative data on residents’ attitude toward food waste. Read the results now(PDF, 19MB)!

Join us in these goals by participating in or connecting with our Food Waste Reduction programs and resources: