Safeway, an Albertsons company, is taking a bite out of food waste through its partnership with Divert, Inc., a company specializing in food waste prevention and renewable energy production. Over the course of three months, Safeway has increased its food donations by 20%, equating to an average of 1,252 pounds of food per store per month that is now being redirected to people in need rather than being wasted.
“Our mission is to eliminate wasted food and create a circular economy,” says Ben Kuethe Oaks, VP and GM at Divert. “By partnering with retailers like Safeway, we’re able to put our data-driven solutions into action—preventing waste at the source, recovering edible food for donation, and converting what’s left into renewable energy.”
Food waste is a growing crisis in the U.S., with an estimated 92 billion pounds of food wasted each year—nearly 40% of all food produced. At the same time, more than 47 million people, including 14 million children, struggle with food insecurity. Adding to the problem, food waste in landfills generates methane, a greenhouse gas that is more than 28 times as potent as CO2 in trapping heat in the atmosphere.
To address this issue, Divert employs a proprietary end-to-end process called Prevent, Provide, Power that integrates reverse logistics, depackaging, liquefaction, and anaerobic digestion to ensure unsold food is put to its highest use. Working with retailers, Divert tracks and analyzes waste patterns, helping stores refine their practices to minimize loss.
 | Read this related article, “Walmart Deploys Depackaging Technology for Organics Recycling” |
“Our feedback loop with customers is critical,” explains Oaks. “By analyzing what’s going into the Divert bins at each store, we help retailers like Safeway identify inefficiencies, improve inventory management, and boost donation efforts.”
Beyond donations, the unsold food that cannot be consumed is processed into carbon-negative renewable energy. At Divert’s facilities, food is separated from its packaging through a proprietary depackaging system that removes plastic containers and stickers in a way that doesn’t release microplastics.
“The depackaging solution must be sophisticated and gentle enough to not shred or crush the plastics, otherwise those microplastics can end up back in water streams and farmland, thereby causing harmful impacts to plants and microbial growth,” says Oaks. “Nobody wants their food grown in soil riddled with plastics.”
In Divert’s current process, waste packaging is sent to landfill, however the company says it is actively working on a recovery solution. Typical materials encountered by Divert include plastic clamshells, deli packaging, shrink wrap, and plastic containers holding expired dairy products.
After depackaging, the food waste is converted into a slurry and purified before entering an anaerobic digestion system, where bacteria break it down. The process results in two byproducts: carbon-negative renewable energy and a clean soil amendment that returns nutrients to farmland. The RNG is used for a variety of purposes, including the generation of power for local communities, including homes and businesses.
Divert operates 14 facilities across the U.S., with plans to expand to 30 by 2031, ensuring 80% of the U.S. population will be within 100 miles of a Divert site. One of its newest facilities in Turlock, Calif., will process 100,000 tons of unsold food annually, generating up to 237,000 MMBtus (273,000 million British thermal units) of RNG per year.
Divert is currently working with nearly 8,000 customer locations across the U.S. Since it was founded in 2007, it has processed 600 million pounds of unsold food products and facilitated the donation of more than 14 million pounds of food.
“Food waste isn’t just an environmental issue—it’s a solvable problem,” says Oaks. “With the right partnerships and the right technology, we can rethink waste and create a more sustainable food system for everyone.” PW
