Thanks to all who participated in the 4th annual conference of Princeton Studies Food, Ripe for the Picking, and moved the conversation forward on the crucial topic of wasted resources in our food system. Thanks especially to our student team: Rozalie Czesana ’18, Korlekuor Akiti ’19, Madelynn Prendergast ’19, Daniel Shepard ’19, Alice Wistar ’20 and Eliza Wright ’19. as well as Pat Rooney ’18, who wrangles the Free Food listserv and Shun Yamaya ’19, co-president with Alice of Greening Dining.
Princeton Studies Food is deeply grateful to co-sponsors for this interdisciplinary conference: WWS-STEP, Keller Center, Career Services, Princeton Environmental Institute, Andlinger Center for Energy & the Environment, and Anthropology.
Thank you to Chef Jerry Luz and his team at Campus Dining Services for the beautifully presented conference low-to-zero waste lunch. And…we did it! Scroll down (below lunch photos) to see just how little wasted food participants scraped into the bins.
Here’s a collection of snapshots from the day, along with notes compiled by Rozalie Czesana ’18. You’ll see the notes are almost comprehensive (she had to jump out for class a couple of times). We will update as we crowd-source the missing moments.
From left, Kai Robertson, WRI; Princeton Studies Food co-founders Tim Searchinger and Gordon Douglas MD ’55.
Gordon Douglas MD ‘55 Princeton Studies Food co-founder, Professor Emeritus of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College and director of three biotech companies. rgdouglasjr@gmail.com
Tim Searchinger Princeton Studies Food co-founder and Research Scholar, Woodrow Wilson School and the Program in Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy (WWS-STEP). tsearchi@princeton.edu
Kai Robertson, World Resources Institute.
Kai Robertson Senior Corporate Sustainability Advisor and Lead Advisor, Food Loss and Waste Protocol, World Resources Institute. robertson.kai@gmail.com
“APEEL SCIENCES: PREVENTING WASTE TO SUSTAINABLY FEED THE WORLD”
From left, Tim Searchinger, PSF, and James Rogers of Apeel Sciences.
James Rogers Founder & CEO, Apeel Sciences. james@apeelsciences.com
- Food production problems lie in seasonality and perishability of fresh produce
- Time lags in figuring out negative externalities (ex. Environmental effects of Round Up)
- “Do more with less”
- Currently $1 trillion food value lost
- Long production chain
- Apeel technique
- “use food to protect food”
- “Edipeel”
- avocado, citrus…
- http://apeelsciences.com/edipeel.html
- extending shelf life without refrigeration, generally by 5 days on average
- mangoes in Kenya (game changer)
- reducing ice use for shipping of leafy greens
- Avocado storage: air stays out, water stays in (dictating gas exchange…idealized microclimate for each kind of fruit)
- benefitting the entire supply chain
- global reach (US, Europe, China?)
- “I have grown to appreciate mold…for its complexity”
- New product for cassava (doubling shelf life) to be used in Kenya and Nigeria
- Powder that can be shipped anywhere, then is boiled and applied to the fruits (not efficient in developed large scale production, but very useful for small-scale farmers in developing countries)
- Cutting the fruit’s respiration rate down
- “infrastructure in a packet”
- “doubling shelf life is like doubling the speed with which a product can be transported from production to end consumer”
Kristen Rainey, Google Food
SUPPLY CHAIN: MOVING FROM LINEAR TO CIRCULAR SYSTEMS
Kristen Rainey Global Food Program Vendor and Supplier Relations Manager, Google Food. kmrainey@google.com
- Google’s mission
- Shifting diets
- “veggie charcuterie”
- Food donations in all countries where it’s legal
- 95% effort in food waste prevention
- scale + camera + data into the cloud à efficiency comparisons
- tracking both post-consumer and pre-consumer waste
- “you can always go back for seconds” mentality and messaging
- the only issues is time, sometimes going back for seconds and waiting in line is not an option [applicable to Princeton? Not so much, because there really isn’t a line most of the time)
- financial incentives to reduce waste
- efforts to use underutilized species, especially in the realm of seafood
- re-purposing (ex. Overripe bananas used for overnight oatmeal)
- messaging regarding leftovers
- you have to be smart about how you repurpose…what ingredients to add etc.
- avoid the word “waste”
- global partnerships
- Toast
- Chefs to end hunger
- Importance of signage – both design, message AND placement
- Exploring behavioral science to optimize messaging
- QUESTIONS
- Are you considering using automated vehicles for more efficient food donations (automated matching) à app
- *Drawdown: comprehensive plan to reduce global warming
- messaging regarding leftovers
- Shifting diets
Melissa Donnelly, Campbell’s Soup
Melissa Donnelly Manager Sustainability Integration, Campbell Soup. melissa_donnelly@campbellsoup.com
- sustainability at Campbell’s – real food philosophy
- ethical and sustainable sourcing
- sourced
- grown
- shared
- produced
- food waste
- target: reduce food waste by 50% in global manufacturing by 2030
- measure
- act
- food waste audits
- prevention
- recovery
- recycling
- processing of all food and beverages
- US, Canada, Asia, Denmark
- Working to eliminate packaging
- Own tomato production (ingredient optimization as prevention)
- Leftovers used for animal feed
- Peppridge farm – collect unsaleable bread for animal feed/breadcrumbs production
- Equipment to de-package unsaleable product à animal feed
- Exploring ways to use tomato peels and seeds (they are high in nutrients)
- Consumer engagement
- Awareness
- Available solutions
- Sustainability report here
- ethical and sustainable sourcing
- Korlekuor Akiti ’19: moderator. ckakiti@princeton.edu
Princeton Studies Food
2018 Conference Menu
Wild mushrooms with white beans, sautéed kale, parmesan and roasted garlic
Brown basmati rice
Roasted cauliflower with butternut squash, portobello mushrooms
Italian parsley, thyme, rosemary
Fennel salad with roasted Hubbard squash and roasted Stayman-Winesap apples
Apple cider vinaigrette
Shaved tri-color carrots with kale, shaved Brussels sprouts and cabbage
Sriracha vinaigrette
Tossed salad greens with halved grape tomatoes and wild mushrooms
Roasted shallot vinaigrette
Lillipies pumpernickel mini rolls
Sweet organic butter
Forrest Meggers, PU-Architecture-Andlinger
INNOVATIONS: CLASSROOM LAB
Forrest Meggers Assistant Professor of Architecture and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, Princeton University. fmeggers@princeton.edu
- Campus as a living lab; Designing sustainable systems
- The internet of things
- Bio-digester on campus
- Food recovery
- Pushing data out (use the internet of things)
- Food waste weigh-ins – real time tracking?
- Opportunitarian diet (like free food listserve)
INNOVATIONS: LAND LAB
Dan Rubenstein, PU-EEB
Dan Rubenstein Professor of Zoology; Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Director, Program in African Studies, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Professor, Human Diet, Agriculture and Climate course, Princeton University. dir@princeton.edu
- Food production consumption feedback loop
- We can produce enough calories and will be able to do so for years ahead…but what are the costs of that?
- Fundamental problem – returning nutrients back to the soil
- Recycling
- Waste: weeds, pests, perishability, spoilage, uneaten
- Recycling: manure, compost, digester
- Food forensics discovering lies within the system
- Marketing salmon as steelhead trout
Alice Wistar ’20, moderator awistar@princeton.edu
QUESTIONS & NOTES
- Importance of learning how to work with real data and asking the right questions
- Mining big data à reframing the question à getting answers
- Different cultivars of the same vegetables used for different channels of distribution (conventional large scale distribution vs. organic markets)
- Shared resources – shared data
From left, Shun Yamaya ’19, Alice Wistar ’20, Pat Rooney ’18, Mayor Liz Lempert, Gina Talt of Sustainability and Jim Nawn, restaurateur.
ACTING LOCALLY: TOWN, BUSINESS & UNIVERSITY
Liz Lempert Mayor, Princeton. llempert@princetonnj.gov
- Sustainability competition—the Mayor’s Challenge organized by Bloomberg
- Voluntary curbside organic waste pickup initiated in 2011 (about 10% participating now = 32 tons/month of ‘saved’ waste going to landfills)
- Costs $65/year to supplement municipal spending
- BUT has to be brought 70 miles away to a different state, because there aren’t facilities in New Jersey
- Community as lab approach
Jim Nawn Owner, Great Road Farm, Agricola, Dinky Restaurant, Cargot and Two Sevens; formerly owner of 37 Panera restaurants. jnawn@fenwickhospitalitygroup.com
- Being able to afford sustainability is a big concern [well it doesn’t have to be, it depends on your approach to sustainability]
- Great Road Farm supplies about 60% of the restaurants’ vegetables
- Low margin business as a good incentive to have as little waste as possible (ex. Vegetable shavings etc.)
- Efficiency on the farm à efficiency in the business
- A lot of preserves from the production to overcome issues with seasonality
- Local supply = lower carbon footprint
- Options are limited by the guests’ wishes
- Waste from Cargot and Dinky goes to the Princeton bio-digester
- Limited options on the menu in order to reduce waste from unused ingredients with a very limited shelf life
Shun Yamaya ’19 Greening Dining syamaya@princeton.edu
Alice Wistar ’20 Greening Dining awistar@princeton.edu
Patrick Rooney Freefood listserv prooney@princeton.edu
“I’m a modern hunter-gatherer…they didn’t just wait for a deer to jump out…they tracked them…so I’m tracking ‘free’ food”
Gina Talt, Sustainability and Campus as Lab, Princeton University gtalt@princeton.edu
- Combining waste from cafes on campus and kiln-dried wood shavings from a local woodshop
- Using wood shavings to absorb excess moisture and to create space for better oxygenation
- Triple bottom line sustainability benefits of the project
- Call for more diverse, local-level composting infrastructure
Madelynn Prendergast ’19 moderator. madelynn@princeton.edu
From left, Charles Rosen, Newark Cider; Jonathan White, Bobolink Dairy & Bakehouse; Jon McConaughy, Brick Farm; Eliza Wright ’19, moderator.
FARMING THE GARDEN STATE: SOIL, HARVEST & MARKET
Jon McConaughy Co-owner of Brick Farm Market, Brick Farm Tavern and their farm. jmcconaughy@brickfarmgroup.com
- Closed loop system
- Ideas of efficiency are changing in the current system
Jonathan White Co-owner of Bobolink Dairy and Bakehouse, where he and his wife, Nina, make and sell award-winning cheeses and breads and have restored habitat for bobolinks. jonathan@cowsoutside.com
- 100 liters of milk ~ 14 kg cheese
- nothing goes to waste at an integrated farm
- be skeptical about others’ conclusions
Charles Rosen Founder of Ironbound Cider Farm, Newark, NJ, practicing restoration agriculture in newly planted apple orchards in North Jersey. crosen@newarkfarms.com
- New Ark farms & ironbound cider
- Urban renewal
- Cider industry used to be the first in Newark
- Mushroom blocks à supplemental livestock feed; mushroom stem products…constant innovation in use of ‘wasted’ produce
- Wasted human potential initiatives as well (meaningful, well-paying jobs for formally incarcerated, unqualified…)
- Short term vs log term strategies for the above (transformation takes time…creating living wages, changing lifestyles)
- Local apples vs. overseas apple juice concentrate as a base for cider
Eliza Wright ’19: moderator. lizzygraywright@gmail.com
QUESTIONS
- Lessons learned?
- Wall Street can’t fix the ag systems (farmers know what they are doing)
- It’s really hard to prove a model, especially in agriculture (ex. Restorative agriculture)
- You can be commercially viable, treat people well and do organic business
- The Recipe: brilliant thinking and technology tied to traditional, agricultural practices
- Subsidies are a disaster
- We should transition money flows from corporate farms to social programs
- Need to shift what people value in food
- People are eating too much of bad stuff instead of smaller amounts of good stuff [issue of produced food, especially artificial flavoring triggering our brain to think it’s eating something else]
From left, Jose Chapa, Rural Migrant Ministry; Daniel Shepard ’19; Tessa Desmond, PU-American Studies; Marty Johnson, PU-Keller Center; Serena Stein, PU-Anthropology.
WASTING AWAY: HUMAN COSTS, FARM TO FORK
Tessa Desmond Research Scholar in American Studies, specialist in ethnicity, migration and rights tdesmond@princeton.edu
- Immigrant labor issues
- Seasonal migratory laborers without cultural mixing (desired model interrupted by the borders becoming less porous)
Marty Johnson ’81 Founder and CEO of Isles, Inc., an urban sustainable development organization that fosters self-reliance and healthy neighborhoods. mpj@princeton.edu
- Depopulation of Trenton into the suburbs, but leveling out (though mostly because of international immigration)
- Trenton is a food swamp with 47% child obesity
- Need for more vegetation (heat maps)
- Schools & bodegas correlation à perpetuation of junk
- 20% vacancy = potential for more growth
- Trenton district is like United Nations
José Chapa Justice for Farmworkers Campaign, Rural-Migrant Ministry josechapajfw@gmail.com
Serena Stein is a doctoral candidate in anthropology; she examines emerging practices in international aid, along with land conflict, food commodity histories, food security, and ethical sourcing. serenas@princeton.edu
Daniel Shepard ’19: moderator
Reception at the e-Hub
Hosted by the Keller Center and by Career Services
Artisan cheeses and breads from Jonathan and Nina White of Bobolink Dairy and Bakehouse, Milford.
From left, Gordon Douglas, Princeton Studies Food co-founder; Dan Rubenstein, Princeton Studies Food Council; Kristen Rainey ’97, Google Food; and Tim Searchinger, Princeton Studies Food co-founder.
From left, Eva Kubu of Career Services; Rozalie Czesana ’18; and Sara Diressova ’18.
Madison Ebke, along with Stephanie Landers and Beth Jarvie of the Keller Center – and Satomi Chudasama of Career Services, arranged everything for our reception. Thank you!
Thanks to Chef Jerry Luz, Paul Dylik, Cristian Vasquez, Sue Wilusz Pierson, Smitha Haneef and the whole team at Campus Dining Services for all the work around procuring and serving this food for our conference. Thanks to Jen Carson of 
Gordon Douglas MD ’55, Princeton Studies Food co-founder, is Professor Emeritus of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College and is director of three biotech companies: Vical, Inc. Novadigm, and Protein Sciences. He was president of the Merck Vaccine Division, responsible for the research, development, manufacturing and marketing of Merck’s vaccine products, from 1989 until 1999. Previously, he was an infectious disease specialist with research interests in respiratory viral infections, vaccines, and antivirals at Weill Cornell Medical College and the University of Rochester School of Medicine. MD, Cornell University Medical College; National Academy of Medicine. 
Dan Rubenstein, Princeton Studies Food Council member, is Class of 1877 Professor of Zoology; Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; and Director, Program in Environmental Studies, Princeton University. He teaches the new Human Diet, Agriculture and Climate course, and studies the effects of environmental variation and individual differences on social behavior, social structure, sex roles and the dynamics of populations. In Kenya he also works with pastoral communities to assess impacts of various grazing strategies on rangeland quality, wildlife use and livelihoods. He has recently extended his work to measuring the effects of environmental change on behavior, including issues pertaining to the global commons and changes wrought by management and by global warming. He has received Princeton University’s President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching. 
Timothy Searchinger, Princeton Studies Food co-founder, is a research scholar in the Woodrow Wilson School STEP program and a lecturer in the Princeton Environmental Institute. His work combines ecology, agronomy and economics to explore ways of meeting global food needs while reducing climate change and impacts on ecosystems. His academic work is best known for papers exploring the land use and greenhouse gas emissions of bioenergy. He is a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute, where he is technical director of “Creating a Sustainable Food Future: A Menu of Solutions to Sustainably Feed More than 9 Billion People by 2050.” 
Korlekuor Akiti ’19, Princeton Studies Food Council student member, studies Ecology & Evolutionary Biology while pursuing certificates in Global Health & Health Policy and Computer Science. She is passionate about understanding how different foods contribute to human health, wellness, and performance and the environmental implications of our diets. Her independent work will use Princeton’s Vertical Farm project to explore sustainable agriculture as a means of addressing current dietary, environmental, and ecological crises. After Princeton, she plans to pursue a career in gastroenterology to explore plant-based diets and their effectiveness in preventing, managing, and curing chronic digestive diseases and how we can sustain such diets while working within environmental constraints and furthering ecological interests. She is from Minneapolis. 
José Chapa, Justice for Farmworkers Legislative Campaign Coordinator for Rural Migrant Ministries, 
Tessa Lowinske Desmond, Princeton Studies Food Council member, is a farmer and a scholar. She is a Lecturer and Associate Research Scholar in American Studies at Princeton University where she teaches courses on food politics, agrarian thought, racial justice and multiethnic literature. Her research focuses on the history of farming in 20th Century America, migrant farm labor, and food insecurity. She owns Firefly Homestead Farm, a six-acre farm in Hopewell where she has a flock of laying hens, a goose, eight alpaca, and a donkey. This spring she is breaking ground on a quarter acre for vegetables, starting the work of planting fruit and nut trees, and plans to begin raising chickens and pigs for meat. Previously, she was been active in community gardens and other urban agriculture projects in Wisconsin and Boston including the League of Urban Canners (LURC) that harvested and preserved gleaned fruit in the city and another group, the Somerville Yogurt and Granola Cooperative. She is former director of the Committee on Ethnicity, Migration, and Rights at Harvard University. PhD, Literary Studies, Master’s, Afro-American Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison. 
Melissa Donnelly, manager of Sustainability Integration for Campbell Soup Co., partners with leadership and business functions across the company to integrate sustainability strategies, performance management and measurement systems. She also leads Campbell’s commitment to reduce food waste, is on the Consumer Goods Forum Food Waste Working Group, the ReFED Advisory Council and also manages the CEO’s executive membership with Champions 12.3. Previously, she was a sustainability manager for Johnson Controls and as Director of Partnerships for the EPA in its Climate Protection Partnership Division. B.A., International Relations, Lynchburg College; M.A., Environmental Policy, American University. 
Marty Johnson ‘81 is Founder and CEO of Isles, a 37 year old community development and environmental nonprofit in Trenton. Isles’ work includes community planning and development, wealth creation, environmental health, urban agriculture, job training, and education for at risk youth. A former trustee of Princeton University, Marty returned to Princeton in 1996 to teach, “Rethinking Poverty: Community Development Research and Policy.” He was the James Wei Visiting Professor in Entrepreneurship at the Keller Center’s Engineering School from 2015-17, and is teaching “Rethinking Social Profit Organizations” and “So, You Want to Change the World?” courses this spring. 
Liz Lempert is the first mayor of the consolidated Princeton, following the merger of the former Borough and Township in 2012. She was re-elected to a second term in 2016. She 
Jon McConaughy and his wife Robin started their Hopewell-based Double Brick Farm in earnest in 2006, then created Brick Farm Market as the dedicated outlet for the farm in the town’s old Malek Chevrolet building. With their restaurant, they created 
Jim Nawn, former owner and developer of Panera Bread franchises in north Jersey, founded Fenwick Hospitality Group in 1998, purchased 112 acres of preserved farmland in Skillman to create Great Road Farm in 2008, then opened Agricola at the site of the former landmark restaurant Lahiere’s, on Witherspoon Street in downtown Princeton. In years since, he and his team have added The Dinky Bar & Kitchen and Cargot Brasserie in partnership with Princeton University and its new Arts & Transit neighborhood, its catering company, Fenwick Catering and Events, and in December 2017, Two Sevens Eatery & Cantina, on Witherspoon Street, near Community Park Elementary School. 
Forrest Meggers is faculty at Princeton jointly appointed between the School of Architecture and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. He grew up on a small farm outside Iowa City and then studied mechanical engineering and environmental engineering at the University of Iowa before venturing to ETH Zurich to pursue his PhD in architecture and building systems. At Princeton he is the self-appointed director and founder of CHAOS (Cooling and Heating for Architecturally Optimized Systems) Lab, which is home to his research team that explore all facets of heating and cooling include novel ways to deal with water and food challenges in the built environment. His research engages with the campus as a living lab, and you may see him placing sensors or experiments around campus, but before he was a researcher he was a bicycle mechanic so you may also see him blending smoothies using his custom long-tail bike. 
Madelynn Prendergast ’19, Princeton Studies Food Council student member, 
Kristen Rainey ’97 
James Rogers, Founder and CEO of Apeel Sciences, a company that helps fresh food providers improve produce quality and reduce waste while helping to ensure an abundant future for our planet. He leads corporate strategy and a team of scientists in developing plant-derived technologies that keep produce fresh longer so less food is wasted. PhD, Materials Science, University of California, Santa Barbara; Bachelors, Materials Science & Engineering and Biomedical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University; 2012 recipient of the Frank J. Padden Jr. Award in polymer physics. 
Pat Rooney ’18 is a caffeine addicted rock climbing instructor from New York’s Hudson Valley who runs the Free Food listserv for the university community. A filmmaker in the Visual Arts Program and an Environmental Studies certificate student, he is interested in how raw data can be effectively communicated to broad audiences and create change. An anthropologist by hobby, he implores all reading to please Google “Head Smashed in Archeological Site” and spend 10 minutes looking into the history. 
Charles Rosen is the founder of Jersey Cider Works, makers of Ironbound Hard Cider, and New Ark Farms – a Newark-based social enterprise focused on workforce development and regenerative agriculture. In addition to New Ark Farm’s commitment to providing living wages to ex-offenders and other underserved members of the Greater Newark community, the company, in partnership with Columbia University, has developed a curriculum to educate employees in character development, conflict resolution, and communications skills. He sees this “soft-skills” training as a tool for building a stronger workforce and stronger communities.
Daniel Shepard ’19, 
Serena Stein is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Princeton University. Her scholarly interests lay at the intersection of international development, agriculture, public health, and environment. Serena’s research examines emerging practices in international aid for agriculture, technology transfer of improved seeds, and agribusiness investments from BRICS countries in Africa. For her doctoral dissertation, she spent 22 months in Brazil, South Africa and Mozambique tracing food commodity histories, land conflict, food security, and ethical sourcing. Serena holds an MPhil from Oxford University where she founded the Oxford Global Food Forum, and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania. 
Gina Talt ’15, Campus as Lab fellow with Princeton University’s Office of Sustainability, supports and promotes the Campus as Lab program which coordinates multidisciplinary projects that use the Princeton campus as a test bed to develop solutions to global sustainability challenges. She overseeis the biodigester pilot study, an investigation into food waste repurposing and soil revitalization on campus. Bachelor’s in economics and a certificate in environmental studies. 
Jonathan White founded Bobolink Dairy & Bakehouse together with his wife, Nina White in 2002. They are guided by their conviction that the best foods are produced using sustainable, humane, and ethical methods.The Whites have developed their own breed of hardy, “neolithic” cows, who raise their own calves on pasture while producing the pristine milk that Jonathan uses daily to produce seasonally variable cheeses that capture the moment — a terroir of time as well as place. The two raise their male cattle for 100 percent grass-fed mature beef. In addition, whey-fed pork is produced on the farm, fed by the whey from Bobolink’s cheese production, bakery waste, and the White family table scraps. By proving that fine food can be raised on sunlight and rain, without producing waste, the couple has developed a model for a balanced, multifaceted farm business that can sustain future generations, throughout the world. 
Alice Wistar ’20, 
Eliza Wright ’19, Princeton Studies Food Council student member, is 
Shun Yamaya ’19, is studying politics. He has been a co-president of Greening Dining, a student group that focuses on improving food options on campus, for the past three years. Growing up in Tokyo, he was told not to waste even a single grain of rice. Coming here, he was shocked by the amount of food students leave on their plates after “finishing” eating. Other reducing food waste, my passions are baking bread and swimming. 
