Episode 15: Tackling Hunger and Food Waste with Sunny Reelhorn Parr from Kroger
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35% of food produced in the U.S. is thrown away, while 42 million Americans struggle with hunger. In this episode, Tad and Julianna sit down with Sunny Reelhorn Parr, Head of Philanthropy at Kroger and Executive Director of The Kroger Co. Zero Hunger | Zero Waste Foundation, to discuss Kroger’s focus on tackling hunger and food waste, keys to success for solving the food waste problem, The Kroger Co. Zero Hunger | Zero Waste Foundation, and the Innovation Fund.
How big of a problem is food waste?
“In the words of ReFED, who is a national nonprofit working to end food loss and waste across the U.S. food system. There's an absurdity, that's the word we use in Kroger world, that in the U.S. 35% of all food goes unsold and uneaten on top of all the resources that it takes to produce the food, transport the food, etc. The food system, and we saw this challenge due to the pandemic, is radically inefficient. We can point to the fact that while there's 35% of food that is produced in the U.S. that is unsold or uneaten, and then on the hunger side, our Feeding America partners have most recently identified that 42 million Americans are struggling with hunger.
Those are just staggering figures. The problem is not just food surplus and the opportunities to end food loss and food waste. The fact is that this problem is solvable, which really puts us in a sphere of hopefulness. This problem is also one of our biggest climate opportunities. We can help reverse our current trajectory by taking a look at our food system and it's inefficiencies and highlighting opportunities and gaps.
I think what's exciting for me is that ReFED has also really deepened the data for analyzing investment need. They estimate that an annual investment of 14 billion over the course of the next 10 years can really reduce food waste by nearly 45 million tons. I think that's just huge. Those are big numbers, and I think we need to humanize in some ways, but at the same time, that's the opportunity that we're getting after. You can take a chunk and they can take a chunk and we can all talk about it in a way that brings collective action to the forefront of what we can do. I think that is what is really important.”
What do you think are some of the keys to success for solving the food waste problem?
“I think the key learning, and it's been a massive spotlight post pandemic, is how do we get after a collective action? I think everybody's doing different pieces, and there's innovations as you noted that people are not even aware of. But how do we come together? How do we form a space where experts are coming together? Even if it's just a specific problem, even if it's identifying where there's inefficiencies within a local ecosystem. I think that's what I've seen as something that we're trying to get after, especially in the Zero Hunger | Zero Waste Foundation work. We have been educating folks about Zero Hunger | Zero Waste, and also building our own ecosystems in specific areas around the country. We're really excited to launch some key projects that I think will help inform kind of the successes that need to take place.
Then it's not just talking about corporate commitments and moonshots, but it's understanding where do government leaders and nonprofits come into play? Where do retail and grocers come into play, especially as you talk about food waste or the food system itself. Identifying that as an area that we can help bring people around a table, not just to be sitting around a table, but committing to a specific problem and committing to action around that.
How exciting could it be to identify what works. These are the people that we brought together in, let's say Nashville Tennessee, and then you develop a blueprint of some sort. Then we repeat that or we take elements of it, and we share that with Memphis, LA, Houston, and Columbus. And we just make sure that it continues. That's our role in the corporate philanthropic office to make sure that those pieces are replicable and scalable in a way that the sharing is open sourced and continued. The key to success is making sure that you're not doing this on your own. Because we are all doing incredible things, but how do you bring that together? And that takes so much time. It takes having conversations with large corporations for the past two years, three years, writing white papers on what we learned, then contemplating ourselves who else needs to be at this table so that we can take action.”
What is the Kroger Co. Zero Hunger Zero Waste Foundation and the Innovation Fund?
“The Kroger Zero Hunger | Zero Waste Foundation was actually founded in 2018 as a public charity to help enable that collective action that I have been speaking to and really ground us in our mission to create communities free of hunger and waste. Since 2018, we've directed more than 30 million to organizations, innovators, and change makers across the country that are helping to address the fundamental absurdity of food waste. We really do seek to support the wish list, and I think wish list is a humanizing term. When I start the conversation with food security organizations and hunger relief organizations across the nation, it's about what's on their wish list.
In regards to the Innovation Fund, when we launched the Zero Hunger | Zero Waste Foundation in 2018 the flagship of the reason for doing that was because we wanted to seed a $10 million Innovation Fund. It's one of the points of the seven point plan of Zero Hunger | Zero Waste. It has been really exciting take capital, this non-dilutive grant funding, and take it to the space of ESG and sustainability. That capital is so precious to these startups. I also want to take a minute to identify from a 2021 perspective that we engaged in a collaboration with Village Capital who is the largest organization in the world supporting impact driven and seed stage startups. So we're looking for those early startups, that are getting their feet wet, and learning the system. Village Capital has an incredible curriculum and investment readiness that allows us to help these organizations not only gain access to a broader ecosystem, but also helps them build their business outside of just Kroger.
The Innovation Fund has been probably my favorite part of marrying philanthropic venture and our Zero Hunger | Zero Waste goals as a company together in this work. And Tad, I thank you for being a part of our Innovation Fund Advisory Committee because we need those experts in the field mentoring our cohort and being available to build on the questions they are coming up against and ultimately help them achieve success.”
ABOUT Sunny reelhorn parr
Sunny serves as the head of corporate philanthropy and strategy at Kroger. With annual revenues of $132 billion, Kroger is the world’s third-largest retailer and ranks #17 on the Fortune 500 list. She leads philanthropy, which includes responsibility for both The Kroger Co. Zero Hunger | Zero Waste Foundation and The Kroger Co. Foundation. In her role, she directs the corporate philanthropic strategy and grantmaking across the Kroger family of companies. She oversees $175 million in assets and a $38 million portfolio of grantmaking. She is passionate about catalyzing innovation and change through meaningful, trusting partnerships with community leaders and everyday experts. In her role, she oversees the $10 million Innovation Fund – the first philanthropic commitment to seek and provide nondilutive grant funding to innovative startups, solutions and technologies focused on ending food waste – as well as the $5 million Racial Equity Fund to support organizations who are working to advance racial equity through innovative solutions. She is committed to advancing Kroger’s purpose to Feed the Human Spirit.
