Food Waste 101 with Local Chef and TikTok Star Alison Mountford

Alison Mountford never imagined her claim to fame would be “No Food Waste Expert of the Ocean State.” Yet here she is, educating anyone who will listen that edible food is the number one thing clogging our landfills. Americans throw away 30 percent of their food — almost a pound of food daily — which is especially alarming, she says, in a world where 34 million people don’t have enough to eat.

A chef and caterer, Mountford is also Hope & Main’s director of marketing and communications, owner of Ends + Stems meal planning business, and @ItsChefAlison on TikTok with nearly 200,000 followers. So, if anyone knows how important it is to actually eat the food we grow or purchase, it’s her.

Some of the dishes Alison’s made using food scraps. Photography courtesy of Alison Mountford and Katie Karlberg Photography

“When we talk about food waste, I always remind everybody that composting is great, but you need to reduce first. Buy less at the grocery store, eat what’s in your fridge, eat what’s in your pantry, reinvent your leftovers, leverage your freezer, pickle things, salt things, extend their life,” she says. “And then once you’ve reduced as much as you possibly can, then we get to composting, because that’s better than putting food in the landfill.”

It may not be glamorous, but her efforts are working. Social media followers send her messages and pictures of stock they made with chicken bones they were about to throw away, and people on the street flag her down to brag how they sauteed broccoli stems instead of composting them.

Chicken pot pie. Photography courtesy of Alison Mountford and Katie Karlberg Photography

Mountford is also collaborating on a three-year project with Drexel University, funded by the Environmental Protection Agency, to offer a virtual course that will teach students how to reduce their food waste. She’s creating meal planning guides and ingredient lists, crafting videos and working with chefs across the country to help teach the course for one year. University researchers will study students’ ability to curb food waste after completing the course.

“Giving people tips for ways to cook in the kitchen and strategies for easier meal planning that start with what’s in your fridge and better grocery shopping … I know that works anecdotally, but it doesn’t hold up in a science situation,” Mountford says. “So, this is the first research experiment of its kind that evaluates the impact of sharing these tips and measures on the actual ability of people at home to reduce their food waste.” endsandstems.com