Open Calls
Supporting Food Waste Solution Providers
The ReFED Catalytic Grant Fund
Announcing the "Minimizing Methane through Food Waste Solutions" Open Call
Open Calls
Throughout the year, we'll be hosting a series of open calls – each with a particular thematic focus area where catalytic grant funding can have the greatest impact – through which grants will be distributed. We encourage all types of organizations with an initiative related to the Grant Fund’s current thematic focus area to apply for funding. Explore the open calls below.
Current Open Call
Minimizing Methane Through Food Waste Solutions
Reducing food loss and waste is one of the most powerful levers to cut methane emissions. ReFED’s research shows that scaling food recycling and diversion is one of the most immediate, cost-effective strategies to reduce methane today, while tackling loss within beef and dairy systems can unlock major long-term impact.
ReFED’s Catalytic Grant Fund is seeking bold solutions and initiatives in two high-impact areas:
Advancing food recycling: Enhancing sorting, decontamination, processing, and access to create more effective and efficient systems.
Reducing methane in the beef and dairy sectors: Cutting loss and waste by lowering animal mortality, improving supply chain efficiency to get more products to market, preventing food waste at the household level, and reducing enteric emissions through climate-smart feed additives derived from waste streams.
Past Open Calls
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit. Natus impedit libero architecto totam voluptate facilis eum laudantium veritatis esse et? Consectetur sequi earum repudiandae voluptatum vero facere cupiditate veritatis molestias.
Maximizing the Harvest
On-farm produce loss is a major contributor to food waste, with U.S. farms generating more than 17 million tons of surplus food in 2023 alone. This surplus—nutrient-rich fruits and vegetables—represents a missed opportunity to reach its original intended consumer, all while millions face hunger. ReFED’s Catalytic Grant Fund is seeking innovative technologies, solutions, and initiatives that can boost the harvest of this surplus, maximize its value, and establish new market opportunities while increasing profitability for farmers.
Join us in reducing on-farm food loss!
Application period closed
Serving Up Food Waste Solutions To Restaurants
We often perceive wasted food as the cost of doing business in independent restaurants. But today, with supply chain disruptions, the growing cost of food, and staffing challenges, those costs are becoming increasingly burdensome, creating an opening to reframe food waste reduction as the critical opportunity it is – to drive operational efficiency, deliver unique customer experiences, improve profit margins, and/or create a competitive advantage.
That's why our current open call for the Catalytic Grant Fund is focused on accelerating the adoption of food waste solutions for restaurants. We're looking for proven or pilot-ready solutions that are simple, affordable, and convenient to implement and/or have a strong business case for small to medium-sized independent restaurants – including increased cost savings, improved staff retention, higher customer acquisition, and more.
And to bolster the catalytic nature of this open call, we're excited to announce that a subset of the selected grantees will get a unique opportunity to pilot their solution with restaurants.
Special thanks to our anchor funder
Application period closed
Consumer Food Waste
As a group, consumers are the largest generators of food waste, but it's not always easy for them to change wasteful behaviors. This first Open Call is focused on solutions and innovations in need of funding that can enable consumers to actively reduce their food waste at home — as well as in restaurant and foodservice settings — by making it obvious, affordable, and convenient. To bolster these solutions, the Catalytic Grant Fund seeks to support initiatives at a local, regional, and/or national level that include but aren’t limited to:
Application period closed
Have a question? Fill in our contact form to share your inquiry.