Preventing Wasted Food in Your Community: A Social Marketing Toolkit April 2023 EPA 530-R-23-008 ------- Prepared for: United States Environmental Protection Agency Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20460 Prepared by: C+C, Inc. as subcontractor to Eastern Research Group, Inc. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The following agencies have generously granted permission for their campaign materials to be used and customized by any U.S. state, territory, local government, tribe or NGO, and have granted permission to EPA to help facilitate access to these materials. Thanks to: Hamilton County R3Source NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (ODEQ) Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio (SWACO) StopWaste - Alameda County, California c/EPA UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY | PREVENTING WASTED FOOD IN YOUR COMMUNITY ------- TOOLKIT PURPOSE & BACKGROUND Preventing wasted food is a key strategy to help our communities reduce climate emissions, divert waste from landfills and to protect the economic well-being of our residents. Current estimates show that 30-40 percent of the food supply in the U.S. is wasted each year. In 2010, at the retail and consumer levels, this waste corresponded to approximately 133 billion pounds and $161 billion worth of wasted food.1 In 2015, EPA and USDA announced a national goal to reduce this wasted food by 50% by 2030. EPA estimates that in 2019, 66.2 million tons of wasted food were generated in the food retail, food service, and residential sectors. At the individual level, that is 164 pounds of food wasted per person each year in households.2 According to data and analysis from ReFED, a national non-profit, a consumer behavior change campaign to reduce household wasted food is the most feasible, cost-effective, and impactful approach that the United States could take to meet this national goal.3 In 2022, EPA conducted several foundational efforts to help inform the development of this Wasted Food Prevention Campaign Toolkit for Local Communities (Toolkit). Foundational work included interviews with communities that had conducted wasted food prevention campaigns, a literature review of relevant research, a gap analysis of research needs, an extensive compilation of existing collateral/materials, and concept- testing of five existing campaigns. This Toolkit is rooted in this foundational work and the principles of social marketing. It is designed to help communities and partners create wasted food prevention campaigns by applying the social marketing planning process to their individualized needs. The Toolkit also includes wasted food prevention campaign materials that have been created by municipalities and organizations that can be customized and used by your community. WHAT IS SOCIAL MARKETING? Social marketing is a discipline that seeks to change behaviors for the good of society, communities, and people. The discipline of social marketing is built on a significant base of research that shows awareness and education alone rarely change behaviors. To create meaningful, sustainable behavior change, social marketing uses research-informed strategies to overcome the barriers that are preventing a specific behavior by providing people with personal, relevant motivators to act. This approach increases the efficiency and effectiveness of marketing efforts by identifying the specific behaviors that must change to achieve a program's goals, segmenting audiences based on who has the highest probability of changing their behaviors, and identifying the barriers preventing the behavior, the benefits to the audience of changing the behavior, and the motivators that are most likely to overcome barriers and spur change. If you'd like to learn more about the social marketing planning process, you can access EPA's online social marketing training modules here. c/EPA UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY | PREVENTING WASTED FOOD IN YOUR COMMUNITY ------- This Toolkit is organized around an adapted version of the social marketing planning process.4 It will help guide you through eight of the decision-making steps necessary for planning a social marketing campaign: c/EPA UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY | PREVENTING WASTED FOOD IN YOUR COMMUNITY ------- SOCIAL MARKETING CAMPAIGN ELEMENTS STEP #1: DEFINE YOUR PURPOSE, GOALS & OBJECTIVES The first step in the social marketing planning process is to define the campaign's purpose, goals and objectives. The campaign purpose is why you are creating the campaign. Your goal is what you want to happen as a result of the campaign and your objectives are what needs to happen to achieve your goal. You should make sure you have defined each of these elements for your community before moving further into the planning process. Below is a possible set of purpose, goals and objectives that you can adapt for your community: Campaign Purpose (Why is this campaign being created?) Reduce greenhouse gas emissions, divert materials from the waste stream and increase people's economic wellbeing through reducing the amount of wasted food in [your community]. Campaign Goals (What do we want to happen as a result of this campaign?) Change consumer attitudes, beliefs, habits, and behaviors to help them save money and waste less by using more of the food they purchase. Campaign Objectives (What needs to occur to achieve the goal?) Develop and implement a campaign that raises awareness of the importance of wasting less food and encourages wasted food prevention behaviors Engage local partners in the implementation of the campaign c/EPA UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY | PREVENTING WASTED FOOD IN YOUR COMMUNITY ------- STEP #2: CHOOSE YOUR PRIORITY AUDIENCES Priority audiences are groups of people who are likely to practice behaviors that waste food and are likely to be receptive (persuadable) to changing those behaviors. It is recommended that you create a campaign that has specific priority audiences defined so that you can choose messaging and communications channels that reach and resonate with your audiences. Choosing priority audiences for your campaign rather than creating a campaign that tries to reach "everybody" or the "general public," will help ensure that the campaign is as effective as possible. It is also recommended that you consider equity in your priority audience selection. Considering equity means thinking carefully about the residents in your community to evaluate factors that could impact people's access and response to a wasted food prevention campaign. These factors include things like preferred languages, unique cultural characteristics (e.g. cooking habits) or systems that influence access to food (e.g. people that live in food deserts with lower access to certain types of foods). EPA conducted a review of existing research to help formulate possible priority audiences for wasted food prevention campaigns. Primary research reviewed included an EPA food waste background research report from 20125 and recent audience segmentation research conducted by the Ohio State University.6 Based on this research review, the following priority audiences have been identified. These audiences tend to waste more food, are likely to be receptive to changing wasted food behaviors or represent key demographics that could benefit most from preventing wasted food. Females age 18-44 Families with young children Employed young professionals Lower income families People who speak Spanish at home Latino/Hispanic consumers who prefer English It is recommended that you evaluate possible priority audience groups in your community and decide which audiences you think it would make sense to prioritize for your campaign in order to help achieve your purpose and goals (step #1). c/EPA UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY | PREVENTING WASTED FOOD IN YOUR COMMUNITY ------- Factors to consider when choosing your priority audience mix include: Size of audience: How many people in your community fit into the priority au- dience group? You want to choose large enough segments to be able to maximize your campaign's impact. Impact on issue: Does this audience segment tend to waste a lot of food? Receptivity: What is the likelihood of positive receptivity and to wasted food prevention messaging among the audience group? Once you have chosen priority audience segments, the next step is to craft a profile of each audience group that includes all of the demographic and psychographic information that you have available about them. This profile can be created using new or existing research from within your community. The profile will help you ensure you choose campaign messaging that resonates with your priority audiences. STEP #3: IDENTIFY DESIRED BEHAVIOR CHANGES After understanding and choosing priority audiences, the next element of developing your campaign is to identify desired wasted food prevention behavior changes that can be promoted through your campaign interventions. Behaviors should be categorized based on their impact and probability of change: Impact includes both the amount of wasted food that can be avoided by practicing the behavior7 and the environmental impact of the types of food wasted (e.g. meat and dairy vs. fruit and vegetables have a higher environmental impact).8 Probability of change is the likelihood that your priority audience will change their behavior. It is also important to remember that wasted food behaviors have underlying drivers such as good intentions and long-held habits that should be addressed in the identification of barriers, benefits and motivators (step #4) and ultimately in your message strategy (step #6). There are many behaviors associated with preventing wasted food. Behaviors promoted should fall within the parameters of social marketing behavior change principles, which specify that behaviors should be a simple, clear and singular action that the audience can take. It is also important to note that your campaign should be launched with just a few behaviors to start, and that additional behaviors can be added over time. c/EPA UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY | PREVENTING WASTED FOOD IN YOUR COMMUNITY ------- EPA's research review showed the following behaviors to consider for your campaign.9 These behaviors have high impact on wasted food prevention and a high probability of change, and are listed in the chart below: Behavior Rationale Make a shopping list with quantities taking existing supplies into account Food shopping routines are a strong predictor of wasting less food and a relatively easy behavior for consumers to learn to adopt. In addition, recent concept testing work conducted by USDA showed a high level of consumer interest in tips and benefits around making lists. Eat or freeze leftovers Leftovers/prepared meals are the second most wasted food category. Studies have noted that food being "lost" in the fridge is a top reason for throwing away food. This provides an opportunity to prompt people to remember to eat or freeze leftovers. Properly store fruits and vegetables (note this would have a variety of specific sub behaviors) Fruits and vegetables are the number one category of wasted food and also provide an opportunity for high environmental benefits. Campaigns analyzed also report a high level of consumer interest around proper storage techniques. Understand date labels and use your senses to determine if food has spoiled Widespread confusion has been reported regarding understanding labels and people report food spoilage as a major reason they discard food. These factors likely lead to wasted food that is not yet spoiled. These behaviors are offered as a possible starting point for your campaign. It is encouraged that you pick behaviors that align best with your program's goals (step #1) and the priority audiences (step #2) that you identified. Other possible behaviors to consider include: Meal planning10 1. Prioritizing meals that use food that has already been purchased 2. Planning meals ahead of time 3. Buying only what you need and avoiding impulse purchases based on sales, your children asking for something, or urges to eat while you're shopping. Repurpose leftovers Right-size serving portions Use the freezer to reduce spoilage Acceptance of imperfect produce/cosmetic deterioration c/EPA UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY | PREVENTING WASTED FOOD IN YOUR COMMUNITY ------- STEP #4: MAP BARRIERS, BENEFITS & MOTIVATORS Based on your priority audiences (step #2) and chosen behaviors (step #3), the next step is for you to analyze the barriers that are preventing your priority audience segments from doing the desired behaviors, and the possible benefits and motivators that could overcome those barriers. Each of these elements is defined as follows: Barrier: Anything that reduces the probability of the priority audience engaging in the desired behavior Benefit: The benefits that will be delivered to the audience if they practice the behavior (what is in it for them?) Motivator: What will motivate the audience to act to change their behavior? Benefits & Motivators: EPA's review of existing research showed three likely top benefits/motivators for reducing wasted food:11 Saving money (motivator) Setting an example for children (motivator) Helping manage household efficiently (benefit) It should be noted that throughout the review of literature and past campaigns, saving money was consistently found to be the top motivator for behavior change while environmental benefits tend to rank much lower.12 Barriers: There are two categories of barriers impacting the adoption of wasted food prevention behaviors. The first is lack of awareness of the problem.13 Cognitive dissonance is at play with this issue with most people believing that it is important to not waste food, when in fact they are not practicing many of the behaviors that can prevent wasted food. This dynamic is being driven by the fact that people don't think they are personally wasting food. Because of this, the first barrier that needs to be overcome is to address the lack of awareness about the amount of food people personally waste. Because people believe it is important to not waste food, if they understand how much food they are wasting, that is a powerful foundation from which to educate and promote specific behavior changes. The second category of barriers will relate to each of the behavior changes that your campaign is going to promote. As mentioned previously, saving money was consistently found to be the top motivator for behavior change. This was confirmed in the recent Ohio State University segmentation which showed both priority segments identified are pre-disposed to the key motivator of saving money.14 Barriers, benefits and motivators (based on current available research) are mapped below to the corresponding behavior changes identified in step #3. c/EPA UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY | PREVENTING WASTED FOOD IN YOUR COMMUNITY ------- PRIORITY BEHAVIOR PRIMARY BARRIER BENEFIT MOTIVATOR Make a shopping list with quantities taking existing supplies into account Busy/time pressure Not part of habit/ routine Help manage household efficiently Save money Use or freeze leftovers Forget Reduced guilt and anxiety about wasting food Save money Properly store fruits and vegetables (note this will have a number of specific sub behaviors) Don't know how Learn something new Empowerment to avoid unnecessary waste Save money Understand date labels and use your senses to determine if food has spoiled Think they know what they mean Learn something new Avoid being unnecessarily wasteful Save money Avoid food borne illness To plan your campaign, you should map the barriers, benefits and motivators for each of your priority audiences (step #2) and your chosen behavior changes (step #3). One of the keys to this exercise is to pick the top 1-2 items in each category to help you focus the message strategy for your campaign. This is also a good point in the process for a reality check - make sure that your benefits and motivators are strong enough to overcome the barriers to each behavior. If they are not, you need to either increase your benefits and motivators or pick a new behavior. c/EPA UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY | PREVENTING WASTED FOOD IN YOUR COMMUNITY ------- STEP #5 RECRUIT PARTNERS Developing partnerships is a key strategy that can be employed to increase the impact of your campaign. By working together on the issue of wasted food prevention, partners can amplify each other's efforts to create greater change. Possible types of campaign partners are detailed below. For each potential partner type there is an associated value proposition to indicate why they might be interested in being involved with your campaign. Grocery retailers: Since grocery stores represent the location where many decisions are made that impact wasted food prevention behaviors, they are an important potential campaign partner. It should be noted though that they are also motivated to sell more food which can be contrary to campaign objectives. However, wasted food prevention campaigns in the U.S. and in Europe have successfully partnered with grocery chains, natural food stores and co-ops on campaigns to place in-store messaging and in other customer communications (e.g., social media, ads, e-mails) so it is worth considering them as a potential partner. Value proposition: Build customer goodwill and positive brand associations. Schools: Schools can play a role to help educate children and engage families on the subject of wasted food prevention through activities and curriculum. Value proposition: Enhance environmental curriculum and help protect economic well-being of families. University Extension programs: Extension programs are another category of potential implementation partners. These programs have deep ties in the communities they serve and many have expertise in engaging with community members on issues related to the environment and agriculture. Value proposition: Alignment with their program's mission and goals and potential to create programs that will attract funding. Food pantries and hunger relief organizations: Organizations that provide food to consumers in your community could distribute messaging with the food they provide. It is important to work in partnership with food pantries to ensure that messages and outreach approaches are carefully created to be sensitive to equity considerations. Value proposition: Helping people maximize the food they have aligns with these organizations' mission to feed people and alleviate hunger. c/EPA UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY | PREVENTING WASTED FOOD IN YOUR COMMUNITY ------- Restaurants: Restaurants provide a potential touchpoint with your consumer. In the UK, restaurants have partnered to promote the behavior of eating leftovers through things like stickers on leftover- and take-out food packaging. Value proposition: Customer goodwill and reminding the customer that they can continue to enjoy their food and get continued value from their purchase. Community Based Organizations (CBOs) and non-profits: Organizations that work in the areas of climate change, waste prevention, food security or other subjects that intersect with your campaign's purpose and goals could partner to distribute campaign messages to your priority audiences through their established communications channels. Value proposition: Alignment with mission and goals around climate emission reductions, waste prevention and supporting the economic wellbeing of people. Celebrities: Celebrities (including chefs, actors, sports figures and musicians) who are well known in your community could help advocate and provide a credible voice for wasted food prevention through their social media and other communications channels. Value proposition: Alignment with a social issue that can provide a tangible benefit to the environment and their fan base; possible compensation. Elected officials: Elected officials have influence as well as direct communications channels that could be leveraged to reach your priority audiences with wasted food prevention messages. Value proposition: A ready-made campaign and messaging that aligns with their goals to help protect their community's environment and the economic well-being of their constituents. Business leaders: Local business leaders could sign on to endorse the campaign and provide campaign messaging through their communications channels that reach their employees, customers and other stakeholders in your community. Value proposition: Customer goodwill and brand alignment with an important cause. Help achieve their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) goals. c/EPA UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY | PREVENTING WASTED FOOD IN YOUR COMMUNITY 10 ------- You can use the following steps to recruit partners in your community: 1. Develop prioritized lists of potential partners. Good partners often have the following characteristics: Complimentary missions/goals Overlapping priority audiences Have something of value to offer/bring to the table and in turn, you have something of value to offer them History of collaboration and community involvement (a good partnership makes things easier, not harder) 2. Create recruitment materials (factsheet/pitch presentation that focuses on the value proposition for each partner type) 3. Conduct 1:1 outreach/partner pitch meetings 4. Create MOUs with partnership details to ensure there is mutual understanding and accountability on both sides of the partnership What is the campaign providing the partner? What is the partner providing to the campaign? What is the timeline for implementation? How will both parties report back on activities and results? STEP #6 DEVELOP MESSAGES AND MATERIALS In social marketing campaigns, campaign messages should help drive the desired behavior changes by presenting compelling calls to action and overcoming audience barriers by emphasizing the benefits of taking that action. An effective messaging strategy for your campaign will avoid the issue of message clutter: when campaigns deliver too many messages at once, the audience can feel overwhelmed, which can ultimately lead to inaction. To avoid this dynamic, it is recommended that your campaign materials each only focus on one message at a time with the suite of campaign materials being able to cover both awareness messages and multiple behaviors. One of the recommended first steps to defining the message strategy is to map where your priority audiences (identified in step #2) sit on the behavior change continuum. c/EPA UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY | PREVENTING WASTED FOOD IN YOUR COMMUNITY 11 ------- BEHAVIOR CHANGE CONTINUUM For each priority audience, identify the behavior you want to change and map your audience on the behavior change continuum: Audience becomes aware of issue Audience is educated about issue Audience develops personal connection; benefits overcome the barriers On this continuum, awareness is a necessary first step before behavior changes can be addressed. If people are not aware of an issue, they are unlikely to engage with specific behavior change messages. Once they are aware and have a level of understanding, then you need to create personal relevance for them by helping them see that they have potential to reduce the amount of food they waste. While there is widespread awareness of food waste as an issue in most communities, there is a lack of personal relevance with people not seeing themselves as part of the problem. Because of this, it is recommended that you launch your local campaign with messaging that establishes awareness and personal relevance. Once that is in place, the next stage on the continuum is to promote specific behavior changes with messaging that overcomes the barriers to each behavior change with specific benefits and motivators for each priority audience group. By helping people overcome the barriers, the campaign can then help spur an initial behavior change where the audience tries the behavior for the first time. Hopefully that person has a good experience (satisfaction) leading them to a habit. Eventually, as more people practice wasted food prevention behaviors, your campaign can build loyalty with audiences acting as advocates for the behaviors and influencing each other to create a social norm in your community. Audience becomes loyal to behavior; influences peers; social norm develops Audience has good experience; habit develops Audience consciously changes behavior c/EPA UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY | PREVENTING WASTED FOOD IN YOUR COMMUNITY 12 ------- This Toolkit offers access to the materials from five campaigns that have been implemented in the U.S. and can help you deliver both awareness and behavior change messaging in your community. One example and a description of each of these campaigns is shown below. How can you save up to $1,800 per year? Shop with a list! HAMILTON COUNTY R3SOURCE Wasted Food Stops with Us This campaign targets four main behaviors: shopping, serving, storage, and sharing. It aims to provide clear, action-oriented information for residents, including storage tips and recipes on how to use up food efficiently and in new and exciting ways. (sample "make a shopping list" behavior change ad) R3SOURCE mmmu STOPS WITH US. NRDC (NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL) Save the Food This campaign showcases the wondrous life cycle of food and encouraging households to take action: "Cook It. Store It. Save It." Behaviors highlighted include making shopping lists, improved storage including freezing food, and using leftovers. (sample awareness ad) EVERY AMERICAN WASTES 290 POUNDS OF FOOD A YEAR COOK IT, STORE IT, SHARE IT. SAVETMEFGOD.COM SERA UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY | PREVENTING WASTED FOOD IN YOUR COMMUNITY 13 ------- ^OH'T Qood^food GO BAD! KEEP IT FRESHER, LONGER Your broccoli likes some moisture and cold air, so wrap it in damp paper towel and refrigerate in an open container to keep it at its best. Get more tips at: DontLetGoodFoodGoBad.org Dun OREGON DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY (DEQ) Don't Let Good Food Go Bad This campaign captures audience attention using the pain point of wasting money and offering the message that reducing food waste will help people not waste money. The campaign uses secondary messaging related to other resources, particularly human resources, that are used to bring food to our tables. (sample "proper storage" behavior change ad) SOLID WASTE AUTHORITY OF CENTRAL OHIO (SWACO) Save More Than Food This campaign has had two distinct phases: awareness and behavior change. Main components of the awareness campaign were to inform residents that wasting food wastes more than the actual food product: time, money, and resources that went into producing and distributing it. (sample awareness ad) WASTED FOOD WASTED MONEY SAVE W MORE THAN FOOD MAKE A DIFFERENCE SERA UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY | PREVENTING WASTED FOOD IN YOUR COMMUNITY 14 ------- STOPWASTE, ALAMEDA COUNTY StopFoodWaste This campaign's primary audience is women and families with young children. The campaign messaging focuses on maximizing food resources and budget through food storage tips and using up ieftovers with the resulting benefits of saving money, minimizing impact on the environment, valuing food, and doing the right thing. (sample "proper storage" behavior change ad) These campaigns include a mix of awareness and specific behavior change messaging. You can access all the campaign materials here It is recommended that you look back at the framework you have created so far for your campaign using steps #l-#5 in this Toolkit and evaluate which of these campaigns might work well in your community. You could also choose to create new materials based on the planning framework you have established. If you're planning to use campaign materials in this toolkit, here are some guidelines to follow: 1. While five agencies have provided a set of campaign materials for use by partners across the U.S., it's recommended that you choose one campaign to implement in your community. This way your campaign will be more consistent and cohesive across communication channels. 2. The toolkit provides native design files for all materials so that they can be customized by partners. We encourage customization of the materials to include your logo, branding, or to link to your website; however we highly recommend keeping the message and overall concept intact. The messages and design were built based on research and a strong strategic framework. 3. Materials provided cannot be used for commercial purposes. 4. If you use the Save The Food materials, please keep the NRDC logo on the materials. If you use materials from the other campaigns, you can remove their logos. Keep your food fresher, longer. &EPA UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY I PREVENTING WASTED FOOD IN YOUR COMMUNITY 15 ------- STEP #7: CREATE AN IMPLEMENTATION PLAN This step is where you determine how you should deliver your campaign's messages to your priority audiences. The following section lists possible activities that you may want to undertake. You should customize this approach based on what works best in your community to reach the priority audiences you have selected. It is best practice to try and reach your audience through a variety of channels multiple times. Campaign Creative and Material Customization or Development: You will want to either customize the materials you've adopted from one of the five campaigns highlighted in this Toolkit or create new materials using your strategic social marketing framework. If your priority audience includes community members who prefer a language other than English, you will want to transcreate your campaign materials. Types of materials you may want to create include: Advertisements (video, audio, digital, social, outdoor, print) Organic social media content (for use on your campaign's social media channels and also provided to partners to use) Printable or downloadable materials and guides (collateral) Transcreation goes beyond literal translation and considers both language and the cultural context within which it is interpreted, to deliver effective, culturally responsive and equitable communication campaigns to communities of color and cultural communities. A number of factors determine the way diverse audiences interpret messaging and brands including country of origin, race, ethnicity, gender, language proficiency, etc. Transcreation looks at all of these factors to help craft messaging and visuals that resonate culturally with audiences. v»EPA UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY | PREVENTING WASTED FOOD IN YOUR COMMUNITY 16 ------- Website Development: It is likely you will want to create a website so your campaign has a place for community members to learn more about how to avoid wasting food. Media Planning and Buying: Your campaign will likely want to include a media buy that delivers campaign messages to your priority audiences. It is likely best to contract with a media buying service that will work with you to strategically identify the best advertising channels and negotiate good rates and ad placements on your behalf. Media Relations: Earned media, publicity or exposure gained from methods other than paid advertising, can serve to help you distribute campaign messages at key points of the campaign. This could include media outreach surrounding the campaign launch, and around significant milestone announcements. The media are often interested in human interest stories such as showing a family that has reduced wasted food and how much money they saved. Social Media Influences: A social media influencer is someone who is paid to amplify your campaign's messages through their social media channels. You should look for influencers whose followers align with your campaign's priority audiences. Organic Social Media: Organic social media should be an integrated and ongoing part of your campaign. The first step is to identify which social media channels should be utilized for your campaign. This decision should be made by looking at the channels that you have already and those that are most utilized by your campaign's priority audiences. The channels chosen should be monitored with a response strategy for comments. Events: Events that include one-on-one education about wasted food prevention are a great social marketing strategy to include in your campaign. Think about opportunities for partnering with existing events to deliver your campaign's messages. Timelines for implementation will vary by community based on the resources you have available. However, it is good practice to think about running promotional windows where you have concentrated campaign activity for a six to eight week period separated by times with less activity. This allows you to spread your resources and audience engagement over a longer period of time. c/EPA UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY | PREVENTING WASTED FOOD IN YOUR COMMUNITY 17 ------- STEP #8: PLAN YOUR EVALUATION STRATEGY Even though it is listed as the last step in the Toolkit, an evaluation strategy is an important component of developing your campaign. The purpose of evaluation is to measure the effectiveness of your campaign, understand your campaign's impact in relation to your goal and provide data to help you improve later iterations of your campaign. The evaluation strategy for your campaign should consider inputs, outputs, outcomes, and overall campaign impact. It is important to note that most local communities will not be able to fully evaluate all four of these factors. Look at the data that is available or could be gathered for your community and create an evaluation strategy that does the best possible job within the resources you have available. Inputs are the resources (budget, staff time, etc.) that were invested in your campaign. Outputs are the reach and engagement of the campaign (people reached through ads, events, partnership results, social media engagements, etc.). Outcomes are what happen as a result of your campaignthe amount of wasted food prevented, the number of people who changed their behavior, and changes in awareness and attitudes related to wasted food. This can be done through surveys that track awareness, attitudes and behaviors and/or waste audits. In addition, The Ohio State University and Pennington Biomedical Research Center are leading a team that is working to develop a "proxy" system and tool that communities could use to estimate the results of their wasted food prevention campaigns. This work is looking at a combination of curbside audits, surveys and photo diaries to estimate decreases in wasted food based on various criteria. A link to that tool will be added to this toolkit as soon as it is available. Impacts map back to your campaign's purpose (e.g. reducing greenhouse gas emissions, diverting landfill waste, increasing people's economic wellbeing). This can be done through extrapolating these data points based on any estimation of wasted food prevented that you are able to calculate as an Outcome measurement. c/EPA UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY | PREVENTING WASTED FOOD IN YOUR COMMUNITY 18 ------- CONCLUSION The goal of the Toolkit is to provide local communities with a framework for planning and implementing effective wasted food prevention campaigns. By sharing social marketing principles specific to wasted food prevention and customizable campaign resources, the hope is that communities can leverage this work to efficiently launch local campaigns that help their residents waste less food. If you'd like more detailed information about the social marketing planning process to help you plan your campaign, you can access EPA's online social marketing training modules here. If you have any questions about this Toolkit, you can contact SMMFood@epa.aov. c/EPA UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY | PREVENTING WASTED FOOD IN YOUR COMMUNITY 19 ------- ENDNOTES 1 U.S. Department of Agriculture (n.d.). Food Waste FAQs. Retrieved March 30, 2023 from https://www.usda.aov/ foodwaste/faas 2 U.S. EPA (n.d.). United States 2030 Food Loss and Waste Reduction Goal. Retrieved March 30, 2023 from https://www. epa.aov/sustainable-manaaement-food/united-states-2030-food-loss-and-waste-reduction-aoal 3 ReFED. (2021). Roadmap to 2030: Reducing U.S. Food Waste by 50%. https://refed.oro/food-woste/the- solutions/#roadmap-2030 4 Kotler, P., Lee, N., and Colehour, J. (2023). Social Marketing: Behavior Change for Good. (7th ed.). Sage Publishing. 5 U.S. EPA. (2012). Food: Too Good to Waste Pilot, https://westcoastclimateforum.com/files/related documents/Food Too Good To Waste Background Research Report.pdf 6 Li, R. and B.E. Roe. 2023. "Segmenting U.S. Consumers by Food Waste Attitudes and Behaviors: Opportunities for Targeting Reduction Interventions," SSRN Working Paper, March 20. Abstract available at: https://pgpers.ssrn.com/sol3/ papers.cfm?abstract id=4399890 7 Floover, Dorby. 2017. Estimated Quantities and Types of food Waste at the City Level. Natural Resources Defense Council. Accessed 3/30/23 and available at https://www.nrdc.ora/sites/default/files/food-waste-citv-level-report.pdf 8 Venkat, K. 2011. The Climate Change Impact of U.S. Food Waste. CleanMetrics Corp. Accessed 3/30/23 and available at: http://www.cleanmetrics.com/paaes/The%20Climate%20Chanae%20lmpact%20of%20US%20Food%20Waste.pdf 9 Dusoruth, V., Peterson, H. (2020). Food waste tendencies: Behavioral response to cosmetic deterioration of food. 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"Segmenting U.S. Consumers by Food Waste Attitudes and Behaviors: Opportunities for Targeting Reduction Interventions," SSRN Working Paper, March 20. Abstract available at: https://pgpers.ssrn.com/sol3/ papers.cfm?abstract id=4399890 c/EPA UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY | PREVENTING WASTED FOOD IN YOUR COMMUNITY 20 ------- |