2023 Food Waste Solutions Summit
May 16-18, 2023 | St. Louis, MO
Angel Veza
Capital, Innovation, & Engagement, Senior Manager
ReFED
Bio:
Angel Veza serves as ReFED's Capital, Innovation, & Engagement Senior Manager, working to catalyze adoption of top food waste solutions. She originally worked in the education field teaching underserved communities. After working with students for seven years, Angel received her Grade Diplome at the French Culinary Institute and worked through New York City’s top restaurants, including Morimoto and two-Michelin starred Atera, and with foodservice companies like Compass Group. During that time, she witnessed the significant amount of food being wasted in the hospitality industry and decided to work with the Food Waste team at World Wildlife Fund. As an expansion of that, she worked in supply chain and led strategic sourcing and procurement with a focus on food waste reduction at Manahtta Restaurant, part of Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group in New York City.
Schedule
Wednesday, May 20
9:00am - 10:30am
“Progress in Action: Scaling Solutions to Food Waste”
Mainstage
Ten years ago, ReFED's Roadmap to Reduce U.S. Food Waste set an ambitious vision for transforming the way America produces, manages, and thinks about food waste. Since then, the field has grown, solutions have scaled, and momentum has built in ways both measurable and inspiring. But with urgency still high and much work remaining, this opening session is as much about what comes next as it is about how far we've come. ReFED President Dana Gunders will set the stage with a look at the field's most meaningful accomplishments from the past year and the bright spots ahead on the horizon. A panel of founders/CEOs will share candid reflections on what it took to grow their solutions from early-stage ideas into mainstream impact—offering hard-won lessons on how innovation and investment align for success. And the session will close on a high note with the announcement of the newest grantees of the ReFED Catalytic Grant Fund, celebrating the next wave of solutions poised to move the needle in the decade ahead.