Food Waste & Food Rescue Projects
National Food Waste Research Network
RECIPES (Resilient, Equitable, and Circular Innovations with Partnership and Education Synergies for Sustainable Food Systems) is a supported by the National Science Foundation. Roni is a Co-Director of the Network.
Funding: National Science Foundation, 5 years. JHSPH Team members: Roni Neff; Kaitlyn Harper, Assistant Scientist; Graduate students: Gabriela Sarmiento, Margarita Cozzan, Ava Richardson, Hyomin Lee.
Our team is working on four projects within RECIPES:
1) Fresh Rescue Champions (see below);
2) Policy drivers of overproduction (with former student Audrey Thomas and Garrett Graddy-Lovelace (American University))
3) Evaluating implementation of school share tables (with Kaitlyn Harper; Mary Jane Chandler and Alex Vinueza-Nichols (WWF); Melissa Prescott (Case Western) and four school districts)
4) Identifying typologies of geographic areas with similarities in relation to food waste (with DrPH student Margarita Cozzan; Jessye Talley and Muhib Kabir (Morgan State University) and others).
Fresh Rescue Champions
In the RECIPES Fresh Rescue Champions project we convened a cohort of frontline retail workers from the Albertsons grocery chain, and worked with them to design and pilot food donation interventions from the worker perspective. We are currently seeking funding to pilot the interventions across a larger group of stores, which may lead to scaling up across the chain and potentially beyond.
Final Report: https://wastedfood.american.edu/fresh-rescue-champions-final-report/
Funding: NSF RECIPES grant.
Academic Partners: JHU: Kaitlyn Harper (co-lead), Nicole Labruto; Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA): Steffanie Espat (co-lead), Lee Davis
Recently Completed
Seafood resource use and waste across the US supply chain (INFEWS T3)
Reducing Resource Use at the Seafood-Energy-Water Nexus: Dr. Neff was PI of this multi-year effort to track seafood products in the U.S. seafood supply from global and domestic origins through to consumption or discard. Publications linked here.
Funding: US Department of Agriculture, 4 years. Investigators: Roni Neff, Dave Love, Liz Nussbaumer (CLF); Frank Asche, Mark Brown, Jim Anderson (U of Florida); Kiki Jenkins (Arizona State University); Jillian Fry (Towson University.) Postdoctoral fellows: Silvio Viglia, Taryn Garlock, Ly Nguyen, U of Florida.
Capital Region FRESH (Fresh produce Recovery and redistribution for Environmental Sustainability and Health)
Modeling environmental and health effects of food rescue-related policy solutions. Dr. Neff participates on the project team with colleagues from SUNY Albany.
Funding: Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research, 4 years.
Food System Resilience Projects
We are currently seeking funding to extend our community food system resilience research and practice work through modeling, case studies and additional work with local jurisdictions, communities, and other partners.
Recently Completed
Food System Resilience Planning Guide for Local Governments
Community Food System Resilience. The Food System Resilience Planning Guide for Local Governments resulted from a multi-year collaboration with a Community of Practice of five cities. We’re now working to get the word out, evaluate the guide, and continue communicating about the need for food system resilience planning.
This Guide builds on the Baltimore City Food System Resilience Advisory Report, which we developed in collaboration with Baltimore City, and on our prior research focused on food system resilience.
Funding: National Science Foundation, Bloomberg American Health Initiative, Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, Bloomberg American Health Initiative. Team members: Elsie Moore, Gaby Sarmiento. Academic Partner: Meg Burke, Johns Hopkins Center for Applied Public Research. City Partners: Austin TX, Denver CO, Baltimore MD, Moorehead MN, Orlando FL, (Also: Caitlin Misziasek, Karen Bassarab, and previously Erin Biehl.)
Workers Projects
Workers: Roni is working with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (Andrea Anater) to study food insecurity as a social determinant of worker health and safety. We are developing a framework, preparing a literature review, and developing further plans.
Recently, our team surveyed food system workers about their experiences during COVID-19.
Funding: NIOSH, CLF. Team members: Caitlin Ceryes, Roni Neff, Joelle Robinson (COVID-19 worker survey).
Affiliations
Note: Affiliations provided for information only. This is an independent website and has not been reviewed by these entities.
ronineff.com 