April Impact Letter TK

Earth month is here! April is a month of renewal as we welcome spring and revisit ways to reconnect with the planet through food. As we have become even more aware in the past month, connecting with local businesses and considering how your choices impact the environment is more important than ever.

By now you probably know that up to 40 percent of the food produced goes to waste. This food waste accounts for about 11 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change. We also know that the health of our global fisheries is at risk from plastic pollution, ocean acidification, and overfishing.

These are big problems, and don’t seem easy to solve. Chefs around the country are working with us to tackle both of these issues.

This Earth Day, we ask that you join them by making a commitment to reducing food waste and paying attention to the sourcing of your seafood in your restaurant and at home.

Need inspiration? Here are Five Ways to Use Seafood Scraps, a webinar recording on Technology to Improve Seafood Sustainability, and Project Drawdown’s climate solutions related to Food and Agriculture. Paul Greenberg also offers tips on a New Year’s Climate Diet that is relevant now more than ever.

We have also built tools to provide the best information about food waste and sustainable seafood to chefs, home cooks, and eaters. See some of them below:

Find a Smart Catch Leader restaurant near you. Being a Smart Catch Leader means that a restaurant has removed any red-listed—or endangered species—from its menu and is proactively helping their customers learn ways to eat seafood that is responsibly sourced. There are currently 237 Smart Catch Leader restaurants across the country, including the historic James Beard House in New York City.

Learn how to reduce food waste in your kitchen. We created the Waste Not online curriculum for professional chefs (and advanced home cooks) interested in learning about tools and resources to reduce waste in the kitchen. Visit wastenot.rouxbe.com to register. There are a limited number of free registrations left, so sign-up now! You can also join #WasteNotWednesday on the @BeardFoundation Instagram where each Wednesday we host chefs, recipes, and tips for everyone to help reduce waste. We’re also working across all of our events, including our national Taste America series and dinners at the James Beard House, to rescue food and compost. These efforts include a national partnership with Rethink Food in New York City.

Thank you to the leadership of thousands of chefs around the country such as Jay Huang and Rick Lopez in Austin, Steve McHugh in San Antonio, Danielle Leoni in Phoenix, Dana Honn in New Orleans, and Kim Alter in San Francisco, for bringing JBF’s sustainability message to life for chefs, culinary students, and customers.

We hope you’ll join chefs like them who work every day to reduce food waste, improve the health of our global fisheries, and promote overall environmental sustainability.

For more information about our programs, please follow @BeardFoundation on Instagram and Twitter or visit jamesbeard.org/impact-programs. Your support to continue our work is appreciated—please donate here to support our programming.

Thanks for your commitment to #WasteNotWednesday and #GoodFoodForGood.

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