{"id":4188,"date":"2023-08-04T14:22:21","date_gmt":"2023-08-04T18:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/foodrescuemaine\/?p=4188"},"modified":"2023-08-22T13:58:04","modified_gmt":"2023-08-22T17:58:04","slug":"solution-1-pilot-4-maine-home-food-waste-challenge-2023-first-annual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/foodrescuemaine\/2023\/08\/04\/solution-1-pilot-4-maine-home-food-waste-challenge-2023-first-annual\/","title":{"rendered":"Pilot 4: Annual Maine Home Food Waste Challenge 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Maine Home Food Waste Challenge was a four-week online household food waste reduction “competition” which launched on January 9th, 2023. Maine residents and communities statewide were asked to track, measure, and reduce their weekly food waste in order to save money and help prevent climate change. Using social media, newspapers, TV, and community outreach, we signed up 84 participants from all over the state.<\/h4>\n

Project Goals <\/strong><\/h4>\n
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  1. To develop basic Maine household food waste data.<\/li>\n
  2. To reduce household food waste costs and volume.<\/li>\n
  3. To increase food waste education for Maine residents.<\/li>\n
  4. To develop a simple, fast, and easy system for tracking & measuring household food waste.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Methodology\u00a0<\/strong><\/h4>\n
      \n
    1. Completed literature research and conducted peer network interviews to understand household food waste tracking and measuring (“challenge”) program best practices.<\/li>\n
    2. Launched the first annual Maine Home Food Waste Challenge to start with the new year.<\/li>\n
    3. Created a\u00a0Food\u00a0Rescue MAINE\u00a0web sign-up form for the Challenge to register participants and collect key demographic and food waste behavior and attitude data.<\/li>\n
    4. Provided Challenge participants with instructions and a Printable daily food waste data tracking sheet to help track household food waste data.<\/li>\n
    5. Posted weekly Challenge “Leaderboards” for participants to track their progress and receive awards (e.g. lowest food waste, highest reduction, longest streak).<\/li>\n
    6. After four weeks, Challenge category winners were selected and posted on Leaderboard.<\/li>\n
    7. A post-challenge survey and focus groups were used to collect Challenge feedback<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Results\u00a0<\/strong><\/h4>\n