Impact of Food Waste: Environmental and Economic Insights

Zach Conrad is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Sciences and the Department of Kinesiology at William & Mary University in Williamsburg, Virginia. He also serves as a Faculty Affiliate at the Global Research Institute. He is a nutritional epidemiologist and food systems scientist, and his research leverages large datasets and modeling techniques to examine the complex interactions between food choice, diet quality, environmental sustainability, and affordability. He is the author of nearly 60 peer-reviewed scientific publications and is the Principal Investigator for multiple research grants at the federal, state, and local levels. 

In 2000, Steve Brazeel founded SunTerra Produce, which has grown from a one-person produce brokerage firm into an industry-leading, full-service platform handling sales, marketing, farming, food safety, harvesting, storage, and distribution activities for specialty crop producers on over 10,000 acres throughout the US and Mexico. Born out of SunTerra‘s participation in the USDA’s ground-breaking Farmers to Families Food Box program, Project FoodBox was launched in 2020. Since the program’s inception, the SunTerra/Project FoodBox teams have delivered over 85 Million pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables to communities in need through its network of food banks, community organizations, and health care plans.

Elevated Foods, founded by Mr. Brazeel in 2020, was recently awarded a $20M grant as part of USDA’s Partnerships for Climate Smart Commodities program. Elevated was formed to bring more profit to farmers by incentivizing the adoption of new technologies & practices and providing technical support to help make them more efficient and resilient.