In 2022, Bob’s Red Mill became the first signatory of the Pacific Coast Food Waste Commitment (PCFWC) to carry out an employee engagement intervention project. Through training, an employee engagement competition, and implementation of an employee-generated food waste reduction idea, Bob’s Red Mill was able to reduce food waste on a manufacturing line by 70%.
Since then, more signatories across sectors have carried out this kind of pilot project with similar success. In 2025, the national U.S. Food Waste Pact, co-led by ReFED and the World Wildlife Fund, launched the Employee Engagement Toolkit, a resource for all food businesses to use to successfully implement their own food waste reduction program that engages employees.
We sat down with Julia Person, Sustainability Manager at Bob’s Red Mill, to talk about her experience with the pilot project, what some of the immediate outcomes were, and how Bob’s Red Mill has evolved because of it.
How did Bob's Red Mill become the first business to run an employee engagement pilot?
After we joined the Pacific Coast Food Waste Commitment, we were approached about setting up the inaugural employee engagement pilot; we were the first manufacturer to join the PCFWC and were eager to participate. The PCFWC provided free assistance to help us develop employee communications around food waste and set up our “Food Waste Challenge,” which engaged employees via a fun competition at our manufacturing plant. Staff were educated about the impacts of food waste before being asked to submit ideas for reducing it. One employee idea—which implemented a simple, low-cost process to regularly tighten screws on one of our manufacturing lines—was chosen to test over a five-week period. At the end of five weeks, food waste had been reduced on that line by over 70%! We were thrilled not only with the results but to be able to share lessons learned with other manufacturers in the PCFWC. It was amazing to see first Land O’Lakes, then Fresh Del Monte, use the same approach we vetted with their own employees and to also see big successes.
Were there any lasting or unexpected positive effects that came out of that work?
The success of the Food Waste Challenge inspired our leadership to set a company-wide food waste reduction goal going forward and name a team of frontline workers across different departments to steer the work, which was the genesis of our incredible Scrap Team. Just last year, our Scrap Team helped steer us to rescue 335,875 pounds of food on packaging lines, and our goal for 2025 is to cut Oatmeal Cups waste by 50%.
Can you talk a little bit about the business case of running a pilot like this? Were there any financial benefits?
Absolutely. Financial savings were seen directly from the ingredients that were not wasted and instead made into finished products. The additional cost of food waste—all the resources such as water, fertilizer, and energy spent to grow and ship this food—can also be saved. The pilot was also a proof of concept for our executives that engaging employees and attacking food waste has direct savings for the business. As a 100% employee-owned business, reducing costs from food waste also increases profitability for our 700 employee-owners.
What advice would you have for a business that wants to try this with their staff?
Go for it! The U.S. Food Waste Pact has even made it easy to get started with its Employee Engagement Toolkit, which contains clear resources to empower teams with actionable strategies and insights.
Can you talk a little bit about the value of being part of the PCFWC/U.S. Food Waste Pact?
Bob’s Red Mill has always been very sustainably minded, but participating in the PCFWC and the U.S. Food Waste Pact has provided us access to valuable outside expertise to help us further and sharpen our efforts. Since the Food Waste Challenge pilot, Pact representatives have helped us to foster and expand a culture of sustainability and collaboration among our employee-owners. We look forward to continuing our partnership and learning from each other!