2025 Food Waste Prevention Week Recap!

For this month’s blog post, the Food Resources Team is happy to bring you a Food Waste Prevention Week recap! Food Waste Prevention Week is a national movement with the goal of educating and inspiring change relating to wasted food. This year we celebrated from April 7th-13th. Manna Food Center’s Community Food Rescue partnered with the DC Food Recovery Working Group, the Montgomery County Food Council, and Food Rescue US – DC to put on a variety of events throughout the DMV. Check out our awesome website to browse the events that took place this week and read on to hear a recap of each day! 

Kicking off Food Waste Prevention Week on Sunday April 6th was an event at Teaism in DuPont Circle! We caught up with Rachael from Eat or Toss who helped to put on this event to see how it went.  

“Attendees sipped tea and enjoyed bread pudding (made from day-old scones), while talking about the foods that they struggled to avoid wasting. We brainstormed solutions, talked about other efforts to reduce food waste, and wrapped up with an update on Teaism’s efforts to convert the green space at their Dupont Circle restaurant to all native plants. Big thanks to Teaism for hosting!” 

Tuesday was a busy day full of many exciting events! Our morning started off at the Agriculture History Farm Park touring the Composting Education Hub! Although it was a cold and windy morning, it was great to learn about composting techniques for both a larger scale and at the household level. The park is open from sunrise to sunset, so if you didn’t get the chance to stop by on the 8th, check it out sometime!

Later this evening, the Capital Area Food Bank hosted a food waste themed cooking class. This class focused on cooking easy and budget-friendly meals from common kitchen ingredients as well as leftover mixed vegetables and pantry staples. We learned creative ways to repurpose foods and even some fun tips. Who knew that you could regrow scallions in your kitchen with just a little bit of water and sunlight! Or that leftover vegetable peels and scraps boil down make a great broth! 

Thursday was another busy day here in the DMV! The Food Resources Team alongside the Montgomery County Food Council hosted a happy hour at Brookville Beer Farm. County Executive Marc Elrich was in attendance to give a proclamation. The team from BBF shared with us some of the ways that they reduce food waste on their farm! They compost on site and use that to enrich their soil where they grow their own hops for beer and vegetables for their pizzas! What a cool space! 

Shortly after this happy hour, was a viewing of JUST EAT IT, a food waste story at the Potomac Library. This educational and entertaining film viewing was a hit! If you weren’t able to make it to the showing, the film is available for free on YouTube and we highly recommend giving it a watch! 

Across the river on Thursday, our partners at Food Rescue US – DC were hosting their own happy hour at Audacious Aleworks in Northern Virginia. We heard this was a fun and successful evening! Check out some photos from this event. 

On Saturday, Community Food Rescue and Manna Food Center partner, So What Else held a 5th anniversary celebration at their food bank in Rockville! This was an exciting celebration that took place during their usual Saturday food distribution. So What Else feeds hundreds of our community members each week at this distribution alone. Groups of volunteers arrived throughout the morning to help sort through rescued food and load it into participants’ cars. Community Food Rescue tabled at the event to share about our partnership with So What Else and to provide some resources for reducing household food waste. Later on at the celebration, we heard speeches from community members, public school staff, partner organizations, and county councilmember Andrew Friedson! We were then invited on a tour of their warehouse and got to hear all about how they started and their plans for the future! The event ended with a Q&A session and a delicious catered lunch from Mamma Lucia! We can’t wait to see what their 10th anniversary celebration looks like! 

Wrapping up this jam-packed week of events was a community gathering with ReDelicious at the Edgewood Community Farm in DC. Every Sunday, ReDelicious gathers leftovers from three different farmers markets in the city and invites folks from the community to their urban garden. People were encouraged to take as much as they wanted. The Edgewood Community Farm is a beautiful space, and the events was so lively! People gathered around farm-fresh food to catch up with old friends and make new ones. This gathering happens every Sunday afternoon and everyone is welcome! 

Throughout the week, Community Food Rescue and DEP tabled at Montgomery County Libraries with the goal of sharing food waste information with folks who aren’t normally engaged with the food system. This was quite a success, and we had many people interested in volunteering with us or signing up for some of Manna’s programs! 

We had an amazing time working with our partners and all of these incredible organizations throughout the DMV. Thanks to everyone who made Food Waste Prevention Week 2025 the success that it was! Feel free to periodically check in on our website as we work to update it with photos, event recordings, and more resources about reducing food waste! See you all at FWPW 2026!