The NO TIME TO Waste Act authorizes the Secretary of Agriculture to build a coordinated federal effort to reduce food loss and food waste. The bill creates an Office of Food Loss and Waste at USDA, funds data collection and local pilot projects, establishes regional coordinators and state block grants for recovery infrastructure, and directs a national education campaign.
For practitioners: the bill mixes research, technical assistance, and targeted grants with new reporting obligations for federal contractors and a push to align USDA, EPA, and FDA work. The statutory design emphasizes measurement, model policies, and public–private partnerships but relies on modest annual appropriations and multiple matching requirements that will shape who can participate and how quickly the programs scale up.
At a Glance
What It Does
Creates an Office of Food Loss and Waste within USDA to run research, data-collection grants, model-policy development, and public outreach; sets up regional coordinators and block grants to build food recovery infrastructure; and mandates contractor reporting and interagency collaboration with EPA and FDA.
Who It Affects
USDA program managers, state and Tribal governments applying for block and partnership grants, food recovery organizations, federal contractors that handle food, and private firms involved in upcycled food or recovery logistics.
Why It Matters
It tries to move from pilot projects to system-level coordination by combining technical assistance, targeted funding, and measurement standards—which could change procurement, waste handling, and local infrastructure planning if implemented at scale.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
The bill sets up an Office of Food Loss and Waste inside USDA charged with research, data synthesis, public education, and the administration of new grant programs. That Office will collect and publish data, develop tools and model policies for subnational governments, evaluate the climate and food-security impacts of waste-reduction policies, and coordinate with existing USDA programs.
To translate policy into action, the measure creates three grant streams: (1) competitive grants to collect rigorous, three-year data on state and local food-loss and food-waste policies; (2) block grants routed through states and Tribes to shore up cold storage, processing capacity, and distribution systems for recovered food; and (3) grants to seed public–private partnerships that commit to measurement and reduction goals. Those grants come with matching requirements and explicit data-delivery obligations so USDA can analyze what works.Interagency work is central: USDA must collaborate with EPA and FDA (and consult other agencies) under the 2020 coordination agreement, publish progress reports, and hold regular meetings.
The bill tightens the Federal Food Donation Act by converting encouragement to a requirement that federal contractors report on actions to prevent and donate food and requires agencies to produce biennial summaries to Congress. The Act also steers competitive research funding priorities toward projects addressing food loss and waste and animal-feed opportunities for food-system byproducts.Finally, the legislation finances a national education and awareness campaign with both community-level pilots (using behavioral science and waste audits to test tactics) and national messaging around labeling, storage, composting, and upcycled-food products.
Across these programs the Secretary is required to publish tools, run pilot projects, and make data publicly accessible so model policies and replicable practices can spread.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The Office of Food Loss and Waste is authorized $1.5 million per year for fiscal years 2026–2030 to run research, reporting, and program development.
The data-collection grant program is authorized $2 million per year (2026–2030); projects are limited to three years and must supply their collected data to the Office.
State and Tribal block grants for food recovery infrastructure are authorized at $2 million per year (2026–2030) and can fund cold storage, processing equipment, real-time matching technology, and staff support.
Public–private partnership grants require recipient governments to provide a non‑federal match equal to at least 50 percent of the grant and to publish annual partnership reports and measurement methods.
The bill amends the Federal Food Donation Act to require federal contractors to report efforts to prevent and donate food, and it obligates executive agencies to submit biennial summary reports to Congress.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Definitions (food loss, food waste, upcycled products)
This section sets the operational vocabulary the rest of the bill uses, distinguishing food loss (production-to-distribution failures) from food waste (retail/consumer-phase unconsumed food) and defining an 'upcycled food product' with three criteria: origin from surplus/unmarketable/byproducts, verifiable upstream supply-chain data, and a stated environmental benefit. Those last two criteria create an evidentiary bar for any program that claims to promote upcycled goods.
Office of Food Loss and Waste and data‑collection grants
USDA must establish an internal Office responsible for research, public tools, model policies, and grants. The Office will run a competitive grant program intended to gather rigorous evidence on state and local policies; grant projects are capped at three years and required to provide their datasets back to USDA. The statute requires the Office to publish progress reports toward the 50% reduction goal and instructs it to quantify greenhouse-gas impacts—embedding measurement and transparency into USDA’s operational duties.
Regional coordinators and state block grants for recovery infrastructure
USDA must deploy regional coordinators to act as real-time connectors between producers, processors, distributors, and recovery organizations, and to align with regional USDA food business centers. Separately, the bill creates an annual block-grant program (administered via a program tied into the Emergency Food Assistance Act) for States and Tribes to fund gaps in storage, temperature-controlled distribution, processing capacity, matching technologies, and workforce support.
Interagency work, contractor reporting, and research priorities
This section requires USDA to continue and report on cooperation with EPA and FDA under their 2020 agreement, to consult broadly (private sector, producers, recovery orgs), and to exempt those consultation groups from FACA. It also amends the Federal Food Donation Act to change 'encourages' to 'requires' for contractor donation efforts, adds a contractor reporting duty on prevention, waste during contract performance, and donations, and obligates agencies to publish biennial summaries to Congress. Finally, it directs USDA to prioritize food-loss-and-waste topics in certain competitive research funding streams, including animal-feed research using human food-system byproducts.
Composting program amendments and equity measures
The composting pilot program language expands eligible applicants to include Tribes and gives USDA an obligation to publish guidance for resource-limited applicants and to accept applications over a period long enough for smaller and rural communities to participate. It also clarifies that matching contributions may include private funds as the Secretary determines.
Public–private partnership grant program
Grants will incentivize local governments to form partnerships with nonprofits and private entities across grocery, hospitality, healthcare, and other sectors to pursue the 50% reduction goal. Partnerships must define measurement methodologies, set working groups, collect baseline data, monitor progress, make annual reports public, and provide a 50% non‑federal match—an explicit design to bind private actors into measurement and accountability.
National education and awareness campaign with community pilots
USDA and EPA will run a dual‑track campaign combining national messaging (labels, storage, upcycled products) with community‑based pilot projects that use behavioral science and waste audits to test interventions. Pilots must prioritize equity, involve local trusted partners, and feed audit data back to USDA to calibrate and scale messaging.
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on Agriculture across all five countries.
Explore Agriculture in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Food recovery organizations — will gain access to block-grant funding for cold storage, processing, and distribution capacity and to regional coordinator support for real‑time pickup and logistics.
- State, local, Tribal governments that develop data-driven policies — can use the grant program and USDA’s model policies to validate and scale effective municipal interventions.
- Small and midsize food businesses producing upcycled products — qualify for market support through education campaigns and may benefit from clearer definitions and publicity for verified upcycled claims.
- Researchers and universities — get priority in certain USDA competitive grant streams focused on food-loss measurement, on‑farm loss reduction, and using uneaten food as animal feed.
- Low-income and food-insecure communities — may see expanded recovered-food distribution and targeted community campaigns that connect households to local donation and diversion options.
Who Bears the Cost
- Federal executive agencies and USDA — must allocate staff time and systems to implement the Office, run grant programs, process contractor reports, and carry out interagency coordination and reporting.
- State and Tribal governments — expected to administer block-grant subawards and meet matching requirements for partnership grants, which will strain jurisdictions with limited grant‑management capacity.
- Federal contractors handling food — must adapt procurement and operations to meet the new reporting requirements and to document prevention/donation activities.
- Nonprofit partners and private firms in PPPs — must contribute at least 50% non‑federal match and undertake measurement and reporting duties, which increases administrative burdens for smaller organizations.
- Small producers and rural communities — although eligible, they may face practical barriers to compete for short grants unless they secure private match or technical assistance.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is between ambition and capacity: the Act sets an ambitious, measurable target (50% reduction by 2030) and builds mechanisms for measurement, partnerships, and education, but it pairs that ambition with modest funding, new reporting requirements, and heavy reliance on local capacity and private matching—forcing a trade-off between rigorous accountability and the practical ability of smaller actors to participate without disproportionate administrative burden.
The bill foregrounds measurement and coordination, but it depends heavily on relatively small authorizations. Annual appropriations of $1.5 million for the Office and $2 million for several grant lines will fund planning, pilots, and limited competitive awards, yet building nationwide cold-chain infrastructure and long-term recovery capacity typically requires much larger capital investments.
That mismatch raises a practical question: will the statute primarily create research, guidance, and small pilots rather than materially scale recovery operations without follow-on appropriations or federal financing tools.
Measurement promises rigor but creates complexity. The statute requires three-year data projects that deliver datasets and mandates greenhouse‑gas accounting and baseline comparisons—useful goals that confront heterogenous local data systems, inconsistent waste-audit methods, and costs for collection.
The requirement that upcycled products have verifiable upstream data introduces supply‑chain validation burdens and potential proprietary-data conflicts. The FACA exemption speeds stakeholder consultation but reduces transparency and raises questions about representativeness, especially for smaller producers and marginalized communities that often lack capacity to participate.
Finally, tightening contractor duties from encouragement to requirement and adding reporting will change procurement behavior, but the bill does not create explicit liability protections for donors or clear standards reconciling donation, diversion to animal feed, and food‑safety rules under FDA. How USDA and FDA divide responsibilities for food-safety guidance, and how state laws interact with the federal push, remain open implementation issues that could shape contractors’ willingness to donate or repurpose food under contract.
Try it yourself.
Ask a question in plain English, or pick a topic below. Results in seconds.