Why We Throw Away Edible Food — and How Date Labels Can Stop Us
Let's help Congress address the multi-billion dollar food waste problem
Despite the setbacks in climate and farm policy under the Trump administration, we can still find cracks in the climate-denying wall. I wanted to find out which cracks have the greatest likelihood of expanding to weaken the wall. So I asked Chelsea Zissman who serves as Agriculture Policy Advisor for long-time climate and agriculture champion Representative Chellie Pingree of Maine.
See how you can support Pingree’s legislation at end of article.
Climate activists and farmers are struggling against strong headwinds as they seek relief from the US Farm Bill. The powerful Chair of the House Agriculture Committee, GT Thompson (R, PA), proclaimed: The Farm Bill will be budget neutral, and the Farm Bill is not a climate bill. This despite the cascading crises facing farmers, in part linked to climate change.
Farm Bill Hearings and Food Waste
I listened to the Farm Bill hearings in February, and my ears perked up when Representative Chellie Pingree (D, ME) introduced an amendment to tackle the US’s colossal food waste problem. Reducing food waste can help farmers by making it easier for them to donate food that will never make it to market. It can help the environment by saving nearly a quarter of our country’s freshwater and 16% of US cropland squandered growing food that never reaches our mouths. It is a climate issue because food waste is responsible for about 6% of US greenhouse gas emissions. Food that ends up in landfills decomposes anaerobically and gives off the strong greenhouse gas methane–in fact, 60% of landfill methane comes from food waste. This is why the climate nonprofit Drawdown ranks reducing food waste among the top actions we can take to dial back our climate emissions.
Representative Pingree’s food waste amendment was ruled out of “order” in the Farm Bill hearing because it is under the purview of not just the House Agriculture Committee, but also the Energy and Commerce Committee. But that doesn’t mean Pingree has given up. She is working on multiple bills to reduce food waste. I’ll cover two bills that are bipartisan and thus have a chance of passing in the current Congress. But first a few facts about food waste.
Food Waste Facts
Americans spent $2.630 trillion on food last year. The federal government alone spends about $8 billion per year on food for our military bases, schools, federal office buildings, Veterans Affairs hospitals, and federal prisons.
We wasted between 30 and 40% of that food, with a value of $380 billion. That comes to about 130 billion meals, enough to feed ⅓ of the US population.
Although Elon Musk claimed that DOGE saved us $165 billion, an independent analysis pegged the savings at $16.3 billion.
If we reduced our food waste by half, the government would save about $1.4 billion and the country would save $190 billion.
As opposed to the DOGE cuts that obliterated programs supporting farmers, food security, our health and our environment, cutting food waste would save the everyday consumer $762 per year and reduce climate emissions equivalent to taking 18 million gas cars off the road.
“Food loss and waste remains a major challenge in the U.S., despite the overwhelming benefits that solutions to the problem would have for our environment, food access, and the economy. Recent actions in Congress demonstrate the strong potential for robust change on this bi-partisan issue, and there is no better time to leverage that potential than now,”
Emily Broad Leib, Director, the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic
How Can We Reduce Food Waste?
I compost all my household’s food waste. But composting is not the first thing we should consider when figuring out how to reduce food waste. Composting ranks four out of six food waste reduction strategies on EPA’s wasted food scale. Number three is feeding uneaten food to animals and number two is donating excess food to food banks.
With a little planning, you can reach the top of EPA’s scale–that is, not wasting any food in the first place. You might place leftovers and perishable foods in the front of your refrigerator so you’ll be more likely to remember them. And if you plan ahead before shopping–and forgo those “buy one get one free” deals that tempt us to buy more than we can eat–you might avoid having too much food in the fridge. You could also encourage your family and friends to join you in adopting any number of Love Food, Hate Waste strategies to reduce household food waste.
What Is Congress Doing About Food Waste?
Nineteen bills showed up when I searched “food waste” “current Congress” and “legislation” on Congress.gov. Two of these bills are bipartisan and thus show promise to move forward and eventually be passed.
Food Date Labeling Act
The bill with the most momentum behind it, the Food Date Labeling Act (FDLA), did not show up in my search, perhaps because it doesn’t have food waste in the title. But it does address a fundamental food waste problem for consumers – how to interpret those confusing “use by,” “best used by,” and other expiration dates on food labels. Currently, labels on food are not regulated, except for infant formula. So any food company can slap on a date indicating their best guess about how long the food will retain its peak taste–often well before it becomes unsafe to eat. The FDLA would standardize these labels, and thus save the $19.2 billion and 3.5 million tons of food that we waste annually due to confusion over food date labels.
The bill was sponsored by Chellie Pingree and Dan Newhouse (R, WA), and has two Republican and six Democratic co-sponsors in the House. Last year, after the bill had been reintroduced five times in the House, a Senate Republican, Rick Scott of FL, finally signed on along with sponsor Richard Blumenthal (D, CT) and six Democratic co-sponsors. The FDLA is cost-neutral. Although it is a climate solution, it can be framed around the more popular issues — reducing waste and affordability. In short, the FDLA is one of our most promising opportunities to put a crack in the climate-denying wall, although admittedly for financial and not climate reasons.
Last year, Walmart, Amazon, along with other companies and food trade associations released a letter calling on Congress to pass the FDLA. In May 2025, the America First Policy Institute, a think tank aligned with the Trump administration that was led by now-Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, released a nutrition policy brief listing date label standardization as a key issue. Why such strong industry support? For retailers, standardizing date labels would save $253 million through better inventory management, including more clarity around what foods can be donated without liability risks.
Businesses support national standards for food date labels because they don’t want to have to follow separate standards for each state. Congress is behind food waste legislation because conservatives and liberals support reducing government and supply chain waste, regardless of where it comes from.
Nick Beck, Climate Advocate
NO TIME TO Waste
Chellie Pingree also introduced the NO TIME TO Waste Act along with Republican Mike Lawler of NY. In the Senate, Chris Coons (D, DE) and Jeffy Moran (R, KS), introduced a companion bill. Its full name, New Opportunities for Technological Innovation, Mitigation, and Education to Overcome Waste Act, pretty much says it all–the bill supports research, innovation, and education with the goal to reduce food waste by half by 2030. It also addresses a critical aspect of the waste “supply” chain, by bolstering collaboration between the Department of Agriculture and local organizations, like food banks, that donate food to food insecure households.
“Each year, around 40 percent of all food produced in the United States is lost or wasted despite the fact that more than 34 million Americans, including 9 million children, go hungry. When it comes to combating hunger, there is no time to waste. That’s why I’m proud to join Congresswoman Pingree (D-ME) and Senators Coons (D-DE) and Moran (R-KS) in introducing the bicameral, bipartisan NO TIME TO Waste Act.”
Representative Mike Lawler (R, NY)
I would say that these are the two federal bills to get behind now because they are bipartisan and have been introduced into both houses of Congress. You can also follow food waste action at the state level. In 2025, 110 state food waste reduction bills were introduced, and 24 passed. My own state NY has date label regulations for selected foods, a Good Samaritan law protecting those who donate food from liability, tax incentives to encourage farmers to donate excess food, and a law requiring businesses that generate more than 2 tons of food waste per week to donate or compost. Check out the policy finder on the food waste, non-profit ReFED site to learn about what’s happening in your state.
TAKE ACTION TO STOP FOOD WASTE!
Tell your House Representatives and Senators to support the Food Date Labeling Act!
Urge your Congress members to get behind the No Time to Waste Act!
Thanks for making us aware of this! It is indeed a problem at our food bank. People are reluctant to take food that is marked with arbitrary date that say, 'best used by ____'.
I hadn't heard about those bills! Thanks for your work!