Advancing Wisconsin’s Path to Sustainable Food Waste Management

Wisconsin has set a goal to reduce the amount of food waste disposed of in landfills by 50% by 2030. We partnered with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to complete a statewide Food Waste Evaluation and establish a baseline for how and where food waste is generated and managed, helping create a roadmap to accomplish that goal.

This work builds on findings from the state’s 2020–2021 Waste Characterization Study, which identified wasted food as the largest component of landfill-bound material — representing 20% of the waste stream, or about 854,000 tons annually. More than three-quarters of this food could have been consumed.

To fully understand the scope of the challenge, our waste planners and strategic communications professionals collected and analyzed data from surveys, stakeholder listening sessions, and multiple state and national sources, including the DNR waste program, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Excess Food Opportunities Map, the ReFED Insights Engine, and Wisconsin-specific datasets. We also engaged with waste haulers, processors, food rescue organizations and local governments to understand the current food waste management systems and identify gaps that still exist in food waste diversion. 

The resulting analysis offered a comprehensive picture of where food waste originates and what will support managing it more sustainably. Key findings include:

• An estimated 88% of food waste sent to landfills in Wisconsin comes from residential and food service sources, with households contributing nearly half.
• Significant expansion of processing and hauling infrastructure, potentially including composting and anaerobic digestion capacity, will be needed to achieve statewide food waste reduction goals.
• Wisconsin’s existing infrastructure does not manage significant amounts of food waste. Only 10% of Wisconsin’s 286 licensed composting facilities are approved to accept food waste. Just 30% of the state’s 122 anaerobic digestion facilities currently accept food waste.
• Education, technical support, funding and potential policy changes will be necessary to grow food rescue and food waste processing capacity.

The final report provides the DNR with recommendations for achieving its 2030 goal, emphasizing the need for a regional approach. Because Wisconsin includes both denser population centers — such as Milwaukee, Green Bay and Madison — and areas with lower population density, different strategies are most applicable in each region.

Urban areas may be better suited for collecting and processing food waste at composting and anaerobic digestion facilities, with more convenient and cost‑effective options for landfill diversion. In contrast, lower‑density areas face more logistical challenges, making smaller, community‑based programs — such as food donation, food waste prevention or food‑to‑animal feed efforts — more practical.

Our recommendations span the full hierarchy of food waste solutions, from prevention and reduction to donation, animal feed and expanding food waste processing infrastructure. Organized into short‑, medium‑ and long‑term actions, these recommendations aim to help Wisconsin move toward a more sustainable food waste management system.