The Iowa Waste Reduction Center has recently begun developing The Comprehensive Regional Food Waste Diversion Project with help from a Rural Development, USDA Grant. This initiative will decrease the amount of food waste that is discarded in landfills by providing direct, on-site assistance and training for food waste stakeholders in four regions of the Midwest. These regions include Iowa and surrounding states.

The project will provide training guides, fact sheets, window clings, and certificates of participation. Training materials will inform stakeholders on the federal and participating states’ requirements when feeding animals food scraps, tax incentives available to donors of food, and guidance to receive these incentives. Training materials will also cover food waste composting best management practices, and how to build partnerships to increase opportunities that prevent and reduce food waste.

After two meetings are hosted within each of the four regions, on-site training will become available, allowing stakeholders to take advantage of learning the different ways to divert food waste through partnership building on a regional scale.

Each region will also receive their own customized plan addressing the best ways to reduce food waste, the costs and benefits of the current strategies compared to proposed ones, and contact information for the stakeholders that attended the training.

Additionally, information regarding how to participate in this project, plus additional food waste reduction strategies will be readily available on the IWRC’s website in an easy to use downloadable format for all to take advantage of.

This material is based upon work supported under a grant by the Rural Utilities Service, United States Department of Agriculture. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Rural Utilities Service.