Ashley Zanolli has been a food waste warrior for more than 17 years, working on various state and national government initiatives to support sustainable food management, water quality and climate sustainability. While at the Environmental Protection Agency, Ashley’s team developed the community-based social marketing campaign “Food: Too Good To Waste” to inspire behavior change and reduce food wasted at home. Today, she advises on the development and implementation of a national strategy to reduce wasted food and increase organics recycling across the supply chain. On this episode of “Food Lab Talk,” Michiel speaks with Ashley about how her career path has transformed the way she thinks about protecting the environment and addressing climate change; her learnings on how to guide consumer behavior change; and her perspective on the role of government in combating food waste. 

Ashley Zanolli: “The timeline for systemic change is rather long, relative to our lifetime. How do you set the stage as if it were a play so that the props we need to build the food system we want are eventually the only ones that are available? And you can do that through policies, through incentives, through different structures so that disparate entities and non-traditional partners start to see what's in it for them in new ways. At this point, given projected climate impacts, security of supply inflation, the stakes are too high not to work together and I think you are de-risking the system when you focus on preventing food waste.” 

01:07 Intro on Ashley 

05:49 Redefining the term “food waste” 

07:29 Government’s role in fighting food waste 

08:35 Driving action and prevention through comprehensive goal setting 

09:43 Amplifying systemic impact via public-private partnerships 

13:00 Staying motivated to drive slow-moving change 

17:23 Opportunities to fight waste in the system 

18:20 Why we need to break down silos and measure differently 

21:31 How might we accelerate progress on known solutions? 

23:00 Consumer behavior change as the “unlock” to progress 

24:10 Incentivizing boots on the ground 

25:16 How to: guide systems change 

27:02 Focus on the outcome, not the solution 

28:20 What it takes to influence a system: translating, listening, and more 

30:56 Why you shouldn’t be afraid to ask dumb questions 

32:29 Anyone can be an expert 

33:36 Doing work “with” not “for” people 

35:25 What to look for in a mentor and where to find one 

Links 

• Project Drawdown 
• The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) 
• Love Food Hate Waste campaign 
• The Courtauld Commitment 2030 
• Pacific Coast Collaborative 
• Learn more about ReFED in Episode 1 
• U.S. Food Loss and Waste Champions 2030 
• Food: Too Good to Waste campaign 
• The 5 Whys of Problem Solving 
• Upcycled Food Association 
• BAMX: Bancos de Alimentos de Mexico 

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*The views expressed by the guests in this podcast don't necessarily represent the host’s views, nor those of his employer.