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Walmart Brings Food Waste Reduction Technology to 1,400 Stores

Walmart Brings Food Waste Reduction Technology to 1,400 Stores

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Dive briefing:

  • Walmart and organic recycler Denali have installed technology for ‘de-packing’ food waste in the back of more than 1,400 Walmart stores and Sam’s Clubs, RJ Zanes, vice president of facility services at Walmart US, wrote in a company statement Monday.
  • With this solution, workers throw expired produce into a bin, and Denali’s technology separates the food from the packaging material.
  • Walmart says the depackaging program, called Zero Depack, increases employee efficiency while supporting the retailer’s long-term sustainability goals.

Diving insight:

According to Walmart, Zero Depack diverts expired food from the waste stream and instead puts it to new use, such as turning it into nutritious products for farmers.

“To recycle unsellable packaged food, the food must first be unpackaged,” Zanes wrote. “Previously, this was a time-consuming process that required workers to manually remove perishable foods — including produce and meat — from their packaging.”

Denali says its machines can separate as much as 97 percent of organic food waste, Zanes wrote. A single Denali truck picked up 11 tons of organic waste from 18 different Walmart stores during a trip to an organic waste recycling facility.

Last fall, Walmart said its partnership with Denali will provide the retailer with food waste recycling at all of its U.S. locations.

The US generated approximately 77.6 million tons of food waste in 2022, according to ReFed data cited by Zanes.

Walmart’s sustainability goals include: halving operational food waste by 2030 compared to a 2016 baseline. In fiscal year 2023, Walmart Reduced Food Waste by 12%according to a company report.