Walmart tackles food waste with new tech
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Food waste being processed. Photo: Courtesy of Denali
About 1,400 Walmart and Sam's Club stores are now using a system that could double the amount of food waste each location is able to recycle.
Why it matters: An estimated 77.6 million tons of food — roughly 38% of what's produced in the U.S. — was wasted in 2022.
- Most of that waste ends up in landfills, rotting and creating methane, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global climate change.
State of play: After donating what it can, Walmart already recycles unsalable, damaged or expired food at more than 4,700 locations, but the current system requires manually unpackaging food items before collection.
- A new process used by Russellville company Denali mechanically separates the organic material from packaging, reducing manpower needs and increasing the amount of food that can simply be put in a bin.
- Walmart's 1,400 stores using the program called Zero Depack are in at least 16 U.S. markets, including Dallas, Houston, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Washington, D.C., and in New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Denali trucks the material to a central location, separates it, and turns it into organic compost, animal-feed ingredients or, in some cases, biofuels.
By the numbers: The new system that also takes fish, meat, dairy and eggs has doubled the amount of food a store recycles, Ilia Kostov, chief revenue officer for Denali, told Axios.
- On average, the effort will recycle about 100 tons per store annually, a Denali spokesperson said.
- Zero Depack separates about 97% of packaging from food.
What they're saying: "When they're built in for our associates, innovations like Zero Depack make the more sustainable action the default action," RJ Zanes, Walmart's vice president of facility services, wrote in a blog.
Context: Walmart's stated goal is to reduce food waste through its operations by 50% by 2030, compared to its 2016 baseline.
Flashback: Denali began rolling out its depackaging services in 2023 in Phoenix, where Super Bowl celebrations resulted in 2,000 tons of food waste.
What's next: Denali said it plans to deploy its depackaging system across the U.S., eventually serving more than 4,700 Walmart and Sam's Club stores.