2023 Food Waste Solutions Summit
May 16-18, 2023 | St.Louis, MO
Alexander Nichols-Vinueza
Program Manager, Food Loss and Waste
WWF
Bio:
Alex Nichols-Vinueza supports the US Food Waste team’s portfolio of projects at WWF, including work with policymakers and the agricultural, grocery retail, hospitality, and food service sectors. Alex is the team lead for the Food Waste Warrior program, which offers grants and a hands-on curriculum for schools to reduce their food waste and learn about the food system. He recently helped lead a coalition of environmental NGOs to develop a policy action plan for Congress and administration to reduce US food loss & waste by 50% by 2030. He also supports the Pacific Coast Food Waste Commitment, one of the largest public-private initiatives on food waste, which aims to accelerate progress on the region’s commitment to reduce food waste by half by 2030. Professionally, Alex brings 12 years of project management and partnership experience across tech, government, and sustainability consulting. He is bilingual in Spanish and English, having worked internationally in Colombia and Central America. Alex holds a BA from the University of Michigan and an MEM from Duke’s Nichols School of the Environment. Alex hails from Traverse City in northern Michigan (“the cherry capital of the world”), where his appreciation for the environment began at a young age– camping and traipsing around its many parks and lakes, and later working summers on local farms. Alex lives in Washington, DC, where he enjoys playing soccer, hanging at the local community pool with his family, and hiking with his dogs in the many nearby parks.
Schedule
Thursday, May 18th
1:30pm - 2:30pm
Insights from the Cafeteria: Food Waste in Schools and Strategies to Reduce It
Breakout Session (Running Concurrently)
Schools provide an ideal learning environment to teach better food conservation habits to the next generation. Most importantly, increasing consumption and reducing wasted food means children receive optimal nutritional benefits from school meals. How can we instruct and instill better habits from the halls of the classroom to the cafeteria? This session will cover how a combination of strategies and interventions — like marketing healthy choices, providing nutrition education, and offering cooking and gardening programs for students — effectively work in unison to increase student consumption.