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tv   Key Capitol Hill Hearings  CSPAN  December 28, 2013 3:30am-5:31am EST

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in california, 50% of produce that is grown. i know there are people who grow food. there are people here who grow meat and people here who cook. so 52% of food that you see in our produce shelves is thrown away every year. so that is basically what i'm dealing with is that 52%. was teaching kids at the teen center how to can and bake and and do all dehydrate of these old school skills that do anymore.how to there is a renaissance. i have seen it. however, when you work with a nonprofit, it is a nonprofit, which means there's no profit, which means nobody gets paid. these kids were doing a lot of work with no pay. they were showing up every single week to go to the farmer's market with me. i have four girls that showed up
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with me every single week. we stay up till 1:00 in the we go to friday, farmer's market at 8:00. these girls were amazing. a year and a half ago, i started a bids. nonprofit., not however, i partner with six nonprofits in sonoma. a week food four days from whole foods locally. and i distribute that to the nonprofits. whatever they can't use, i make food with it with those kids. i brought some stuff. there's raisins back there that we make from the 80 million cases of grapes that we get every summer. season, i get n it. year a farm d this in sonoma. nowalley girl food stuff is
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valley girl food stuff and farm. organic.ified sort of a big process. we grow everything using organic and sustainable processes. that's my side job. my real job is being a state farm agent. >> very great mission. very cool operation. hoping to hear more from you later. -- co-founder of a d star partners and co-founder of mindful investors. we'll talk about everything he does. >> won't talk about everything. but i'll share a few secrets with you about food waste reduction. day job -- a lot of us have investmentobs, is an fund calling mindful investors here we focus on investing in companies we call life impact. it's innovative breakthrough
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our ologies that impact lives and helps being a foundational aspect of what we do. he environment is a key area we're investing in, food, water, agriculture is another key area. years ago, stu, we're working on the food waste issue. you p you with everything ask. involved withting them in the food waste production business. they look to this as the issue of how do we change the world? how do you reduce all of the waste that's occurring in every side of the food. animal t starting with protein. we spent a year and a half looking at this and said how can we do that, this product is a shelf stable product that's going to waste and bring them to the food channel, particularly that's on taking food
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going to be thrown away and getting low cost and then would bea product that great value for a consumer. stable be a shelf product. we were too early. and the first place you start with, quote, the low-hanging fruit and vegetables starting we call it food star partners and we were encounter some smart people focus in this area. one of my partners, ron, is here. ron, say hello. ron has been working in the food over a siness for decade. focused on bringing food that is coming from farms and going to be wasted and bringing it into mostly the food banks and not sectors.t we created food star as echnology business and technology platform.
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a for profrt business focused on how do we take those and not throw them away. how do we take the food and put them to use and bring them for people to eat and in particular, is low-income communities where we try to focus. e created food star with the two spisk ideas. the first is ron has great rlgsship with farmers around the valley that have a significant amount of food they're going to waste. they may be going to animal feed, juicing, or may not be picked. e're sourcing and finding the sources of fruits and vegetables and we bring those to retail markets. consumers lover it.
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it's great food. great fruits and vegetables. nutritional value. the great value to consumers. their employees love it. it's been an incredibly successful program. looking to expand it to the retailers in the west coast and expand it beyond the west coast. the second aspect is about technology. we're developing for third party vendors and partners and leveraging technologies that are today to use technology as gordon said, as roger said, to improve the supply chain. there are a lot of tools that xists today to be able to improve the entire growth process and looking at ransportation, the time that food is spent at a distribution facility when it is in at your it's at the back room. how long it takes to get from the back room out to the shelf? shelf.g it's on the
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what's the life cycle of that food. ton is it likely to be going be bad. when is it becoming short code date. we're integrating the technologies. the shrink.d instead of a bag out there. of a plastic bag with black bananas. getting it beforehand. letting customers know you can value by buying the products and we created flash sales. two or three times a week, they have flash sales notifying customers tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. from 4:00 to 5:00, we've got cucumbers.elons, and they're 60% to 80% off. they loved it. it's great product and value to them. kind of nging these
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ideas and technologies to the retail industry to produce food interested in bringing more of us that are together.n this this is a collaborative issue. work together. so one of the things we talked technology there's to reduce today, you can reduce in our home. great interest for you all to be part of the solution. >> kelly, the program director at food shift. oakland-based nonprofit. we've been around for two years. is working to g redice food waste. we're interested in doing this ways.ouple of different the first step is the action. eople need to know about this
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problem, what we learned about ampaigns overseas is a lot of people have no idea about the problem of food waste or what to solve it. e're not only telling people about the environmental and the social consequences of the them food, we're arming with tips and tools to reduce it. how do you help plan your meals involved andfamily moving food that's soon to be spoiled to the front of the fridge. what are some everyday tips and tools to kind of arm the way and e thinking about food meal planning? herbs. you store where's the proper place to put eggs from the farmer's market. programs we're launching in
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2014. we're working with the oakland unified school district to do a unified recovery program. we work with parents on site. e work with food safety and handling. we take the food that's edible because federal meal plan regular lags can't be returned to the cafeteria. distribute the food out to kids, the schools that meet back to their students. helps to rogram supplement their meal times. working on a program. we're inspired by valley girl kitchen, s, l.a. people familiar with those, and trying to figure out ways to make this problem into a solution. you know, we're not -- we're interest in the source production, which is obviously reducing food in
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waste, but food that is going to go to waste, food that can't be a grocery store, excess food from a restaurant hat they won't sell to a customer but is still otherwise edible. what can we do with that food to a w do we turn that positive? how can we create a food generation model with food waste. >> perfect. >> patricia kelly from lean task. they go on at the paddle. we started with ashley at the end of the food chain. waste production systems.
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we live by three statements in the company. what you can't measure. can an control, but you influence post. i'm meeting someone that's new. typically a presentation of ists of me providing all the information, the data that you heard so far. can't understand you manage what you can't measure, a lot of coaching and consulting to go with it. food has been identified to go scale.e, it has a on top of the scale, it's a camera. this tracker and tablet is
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it's ready steel so for the durable kitchen environment. his is how easy it is to work and transact. we have created a user nterface to reporting an analytic capability that's state of the art. we want to make sure that the technology is the best in the world. equally important, we stop and say nobody will be successful without a cultural change. we do a lot of trading and coaching. all of this ultimately allows it baseline, understanding the melt rick. we establish goals and work with coaching and, you know, working day-to-day basis on how it affects procurement, how it affects men union planning and production. createdhese are systems through metric for management. >> to visualize it a little bit. at the website. there are nice photos. ou're selling to food service
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operations preparing large volumes of food. >> the end of q-1 in 2014, a audit app that's a mobile for those that -- for small owner operated businesses so as well.participate what you see on the website now, often, it's commercial. it's somewhere in excess cesc of $250,000 a year. >> so, when they produce foods, capture, and ure, repurpose what used to be food waste in their own production supply chain. >> that is correct. >> you can see, a lot of different perspective here. ne common thread, a lot of economic gains to be had, whether it's in the nonprofit or for profit, that's the good news. 1 i think people stand to profit from doing something differently great momentum driver if you talk about making a hange in the industrial
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setting. i want to talk by starting with the low-hanging fruit, so to speak. it is an app because a lot of it produce.red on fresh fruits and vegetables spoil quickly. seafood is an area where there's a lot of loss. but i read a great report. i encourage y'all if you want to dig deeper, the national resource of defense council, a woman works there named dana gunder. she's quite prolific. she put out a record called "wasted." the consumer losses over half of of theal food waste, 40% waste in the united states. t seems to be the area of greatest promise in terms of sheer volume of food. i know you're not the end consumer. ut how is your company addressing consumer losses and what is the biggest series of opportunity and the biggest
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challenges? a lot of this has to do with the established behavior patterns, the psychology. these are mushy areas where it's hard for a company to affect at the consumers are doing home and the point of consumption. >> at the place where we're working in that area, there's a lot of opportunity. right now, 60% of what's going to the landfills is organic waste. in california, there's legislation that's telling requiring that land fills divert 75% from land fills by 2020. so the way we look at dealing with waste is first you check recycleables then your organics, then you have a small the end.of trash at and so -- the opportunity for that organics is just fantastic. i mean, i mentioned the 1.6 of have smallerbut we plants that is generating 100 kilowatts.
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we have a facility that we're working on right now that is converting it into cng fuel so one route of picking up trash for thatte enough fuel collection vehicle to run for the rest of the day. so the opportunities are grand and they're everywhere. biggest hat the obstacle is is twofold. one, getting the word out there. so everybody knows this technology exists. it's economically feasible that there are just a host of benefits for it. it a en, what makings little more difficult is the collection side of it. n some places, you have the green bins, right? there.t your stuff in a lot of places don't have that yet. every waste district handles that a little differently. in the area where i'm from, we put our first facility, there's
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a restaurant program. a number of he -- the restaurants in the area have signed up and there's a special collection from those restaurants. the food waste from those the smaller uels facility that we have. it's in collection and as far as improving, it's all about education. not just education of the consumer, it doesn't matter if the consumer is educated if the take that t there to separation and correctly convey t the whole way through to the digester. so it's a whole stream of education. >> great. you address the consumer in the home and the restaurants. was thinking of this, my experience with my roommate, half of them are good about turning out the light,
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composting, things that have a clear incentive thing to do, if you drove down the utility bills. the other half didn't seem to care. feel like the population is split along those lines. ow are you getting them to do things differently? >> that is how they face this. ow are you aware of the different behave your changes. epa found one of the biggest motivators is not the financial concern. it's a lot of the individuals oakland.ork with in it's this innate feeling of sadness when you see wasted food. there's something that's within us that we can't name and is about.ult to talk that's something we're trying to tap in as well. so for us, we have are a couple
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of different angles that we talk about. 25% of the fresh water that's goes to ood production food we never eat. we talked about how 1 in 6 eople in alameda county don't know where the next meal is going to come from. most are chirp and senior citizens. we talk about the financial implications of 1600 and some estimates up to $2200 a year for the average consumer and what they e spending in food never eat. biggish issue, stu spoke to is coalition. we need more food reduction programs. we need people gleaning from programs, all of those, you know, in everyday practice e get the food from what would be the trash can and into people's bellies. we need macrochange. talk about policy change, we need to evaluate the operates.recovery
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the other issue is, for example, the san francisco food runners is an amazing program. they have 200 volunteers. tonsmove something like 15 of food a week. dense.e just making a they are kind of in the mire we're in, we can't pay our volunteers. how do we change that? one of the thingings we're orking on is creating a job training and recovery program -- job placement program. that way we can train people, we can pay them to go and process food. that money comes back not as profits, but goes back to the program. we can get another grocery store onboard. another restaurant onboard. another program that we're orking on in terms of restaurants. it's called satisfito, it brazil. in it's similar to bill half sis in austin, texas.
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but it's encouraging people to smaller portions. you have a restaurant that signs entree 2/3 ofer a the size of the original entree prize.e same that goes to end childhood hunger. all of the tactics need to work together. we need to work together to be able to have a client that comes n and we have an issue, we can say, oh, i actually -- that's not what we do. they can l you how help your large scale grocery store deal with waist in 2er78s of source reduction. >> great, either of you want to chime in? one is fresh favor, one is blue
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apple. you can put with your prodeuce. they extend the shelf life five days up to three weeks. there are technologies that have been developed that you can use home.r there's also a coating of fruits and vegetables in the vegetable-based shell. and there's innovative practices will say forward thinking companies are using. you might have seen the product in the markets organic salad business. oxygen ated some deprivation. so it reduces the amount of in food. that occurs they're focused on as soon as it's picked, picked at 2:00. within 24 hours that product is in your store.
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there are ways for the growers to hell. when you have the stuff that's make ayou can cut it up, sauce or soup from it. lot of things to increase this figure. >> there's a lot of writing on this. but food labels, expiration dates, there's no uniformity and standard there. it's up to the food manufacturer what the write and what date to put on there. and that anchor point may mean something or may not. typically it's a date to signify when it should move out of retail but it may have another plus in or a month
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refrigeration life. in want to speak to education in that space? speak to that in a little bit. to your first question, one of as things i can say as far education, get some teenagers onboard. and tell get out there everybody what you're telling them. and make their parents do what them to do. they're effective and they're persistent as well. when e super irritating they get on their soap box. one of the things that i've been trying to work on as far as, you know, what do we do with all of this food? and so, for instance, you're talking about recipes for different things. bananas that like come in. salad greens are constant.
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bananas, however, once they look a certain way, people don't want them. aesthetics.ely it's nothing do with taste or what you can do with the banana, it's got only to do with the fact that it's got brown on it. trying to re-educate people around aesthetics can be really difficult. i would say like generational. you can't get there. trying to be innovative in that the foods, salad greens i could not know what to deal with. you have to eat them or compost them. banana, i discovered different ways i can use them. processthe re-education for me is for me as well. o what i'm noticing is i have to change the way i have to think about creating something them.t of i'm fine with brown bananas. taste good myself,
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i know some people don't. if you have five cases of brown bananas, suddenly hate them with a passion. eight recipes i have figured out. you have to hem, pay me lots of money. the education process is not just educating other people, ourselves educating as well. i think i just circumvented your question. >> you go girl. >> at any rate, the education process does start at home first. it starts with ourselves and asking certain kwis about what it is that we will eat. noticed is the at risk kids i work with -- and these kids are -- these are from families where the homes are
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broken. the mother might be in jail because she did something to the dad or the dad might be in jail because he did something to the mom. mom. these kids didn't often eat at night. what they do eat is what was just donated to me. they need food. go to the local high school where the kids have the money. much.don't need food so he two different demographics, the kids who need food that you think don't know anything are ore open to what i have to say than the kids who have food. that blew me away. come 't expect kids who from good families. they don't want to change what they do.
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it's too hard -- too hard to stick something in the refrigerator to keep your food turning around. that's the attitude a lot of these kids had. i was like you little punk. i went to the at risk kids, they listened to me. they weren't being inundated or media, ipad, iphone inanny or whoever. they would listen to what i said and would make a change. the tomato they all use in their house holds hispanic and re cut the brown spot off of it away.r than throw it dad would not throw the tomato away. e're talking about cultural
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differences here. fact of the matter it's changing. i'm small. employees this year because i'm cycling it through my insurance business. i did see change. it's possible in the education process we're talking about, it work and lot of passion. so if we can clone my dna, we can do that. losses that are less between production and post consumer. problem, have a though. ou deal with the consumer pickiness issue. can you talk about alleviating losses in the retail. is this a pure economics question. you drop the price low enough, people are happy to take it. crave value where there was
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none and the distribution part of the supply chain? working? you seen what doesn't? >> from 1.5% profit to 0.7% loss. waste is essential right now to america. wasting food, the ntire industry would go to cardiac arrest. 10% of the fresh water, 8% of the sh water, energy, 25% of the land.
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we didn't get to the situation overnight. we have to restructure the economy. that's a long term process. it has to be done because of the resources we're burning through. we're trying to develop a system new sectors. in for example, recapture some of the industry. use it as compost. existing ot of dollars.t and lobbying the other thing is we come to as a monolithic thing. in the last year, did you feel hungry or did you worry about is coming ext kneel
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from. hat'se kwatding people on the streets with people who just lost a job. so there are programs in there. college students are not just dropping off the meal, they're eating. together.ok people if you look at it as a logistics will boil down to a cultural problem. e have a starting l.a. kitchen advisor.
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he brought it up to speed logistically. changed the face of the history. he said you can have all of the apps you want. down to y it comes culture. it has to sustain to build a new economy and build a new culture. that is the goal. you do it. >> roger is saying this is all about economics at some point. it's hard for the farmer, the retailer, to really look at this and justify making investments relatively entrenched industries to say how nt we make this more efficie and profitable for us. i think the key driver we're of ng starting this is more a moral issue. people are saying we want to do well. e want to look at this issue and say how can we reduce the waste? no one wants to throw the food
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away. so for example we approached riginally the first customer was walmart. we took the idea to walmart. walmart throws away -- i'm not going to quote the numbers. the numbers are insanely high the amount of food they throw away. they know it. they measure every piece of food through the system. what they ended up doing is realizing there was an opportunity for them to change, chain and lookly at the purchasing patterns and ow they take certain product, instead of taking and distributing all of the the cts, to hold some of product they know they won't be able to a sell it because they ought so mush, they never have enough consumer demand for it because they get so much at great prices. o hold it there, to figure out ways to take that product and bring it into more often than for profit
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opportunity and donate that food which they're donating the again, so, so nce large. they are interested and caring they want to do this. it's a feel good basis. they need to show that the reallycs behind this are important. they're really valuable. it's not just about what's lost. there is true profit margin opportunity. so those are some of the tools forward to ringing show they're beautiful economics nd we don't have to accept the fact we're going to throw away a certain amount of our foods. >> talking about walmart. walmart from arkansas can tell coolers has a leaky seal. hey know when the seals are
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broken because they don't like to waste money. most food banks can't tell you where the trucks are. you get to be late for walmart once. food banks are open 9:00 to 5:00 monday through friday. they don't are the money. every food bury bank in produce every day of the week. the food banks are the problem. they don't have the resources to move that food. they should be in the composting business so there's always an answer to the problem and aggregate some place that you can get about bringing about gas than you generate. very culture in the world will do it. possible on the business end. i ran a nonprofit for years. you never get them to think, you like do how would you it? policy, do you give the
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resources to do what you say you want them do. not just about shovelling food into a hopper or dropping off there r people and say you go. a real question. right ant to take it the way? >> we have multiple colleges, niversities, health care, casinos, hotels. but the most we've had the most challenging time with are the retail. thanave more exposure when i do. first of all, its's a concept of negligence therefore it could lead to job and security. there are a lot of reasons, it all comes down to economics. as i listen to the conversations and the objections, it seemed to come to a psychology they didn't want to confront the metric, they didn't want to see the numbers. they weren't ready. they didn't want to have a solution once they saw the numbers in black and white.
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we're struggling with it. we know there's a huge amount there. the smaller they are, the more receptive. mean, gger they get, i like i said, it's a group thing here. they're exposing me to stuff that i hasn't thought to. technologies are not ready to see that in black and white. things.s are stubborn make your way to the back. there's a microphone there. have a commonnion food waste policy along 2700 countries. target 50% waste production and food chain input by 2020. that's an aggressive goal coming n the heels of the least productive session of the u.s. congress in recorded history. is there something we can hope
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u.s. on par with it? federal or state level, food waste production products? or is it something that people in the audience should be asking ocal representatives or officials to do to grease the wheels for your various goals. missing that hing the government could spur in food waste? >> as i mentioned before, in the state of california, there is actually legislation that is pushing the waste sector to deal with organic waste, or a diversion from landfills by 2020.
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really make people confront that. we have seen interest in other places, where people are realizing there is an economic benefit to do it. we are starting to see that type of legislation in the united states. one thing i would say about europe as well is, the biogas -- the european biogas association or german biogas association -- they have digesters and are expecting that to increase to 2000 by 2020. they are putting a big emphasis on biogas. we are seeing that in california, and it is creeping up other places. there really will be movement in that direction. >> a section of the irs code needs to be changed to give a credit. that will spur a lot of movement. the federal food waste reduction act is the most hypocritical thing you have ever read. the administrators will require the contractor to take measures to reduce food waste and to recover food. they said the administrator shall in no way create -- take financial responsibility for those
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efforts. if that were true, you guys would be able to find yourselves like that. make some change. >> i already said it. get the teens. >> we launched a petition to the epa administrators. there was a project called "the food too good to waste toolkit." it is aimed at municipalities, but expanding. we want them to put their backing and funding behind this toolkit. there are people giving cooking lessons. there are training programs for people who are interested in spreading the word about food may -- food waste and what you an do with that. go to our website and sign that
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petition, and help us get epa unding behind the toolkit. >> i am sorry to say there is not any optimism there. to become educated is the process. the more we become educated in understanding what we can do in our own personal life and personal homes, and how we can integrate that. and for the businesses, understand how it is truly an economic benefit for them, whether it is profit driven or marketing, branding, and feeling good about it. that is the approach we think is going to drive the change we need to see happen. >> i am not confident on the federal level, but i have a lot of confidence in the system, dealing with a lot of municipalities that are very accurate -- very active. they are putting bans on local organics in the landfill. right now, it is very
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bottom-up. >> i am very pleased with the level of specificity. we had the tax code cited over there. >> one of the things that i think is very important is how we frame this. we say, there are lots of problems with food waste. there are lots of problems everywhere. ut there is not just a problem. there are opportunities now. all of us are in things now that did not exist before. i am sure you are involved in movements that did not exist before. this is not just about the problem of food waste. it is about the opportunities that did not exist before, making sure people are aware of the opportunities. people hear about problems every day.
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but what could happen there that was not before? that is where we could make headway. >> is the thing that kept hitting me is that the problem is with retail. so other than the really wonderful thing about the flash sales, what i'm wondering is if the retail system is so broken, what do we do to create a new way of selling food that doesn't have so much waste? i would rather see us redesign a way of selling food to people that doesn't have so much waste than figuring out what we do with the waste. let's go back one step in the problem. my company is less than a year old and we have between 3 and 6% waste already and most of that is going to my employees. that's my question to you. >> there is a man maybe you all
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have heard of him doug rowl. he's the previous president of trader joe's. doug has been focusing on food waste reductions. it's an educational process to know just because this date is stamped does not mean that the food is not good or you have a health risk. there needs to be greater education about that. what doug is looking at doing is he's in the midst of trying to create a retail store that sells all expired or short code dates and he gets them sold to him as dramatic discounts and people come and shop and get great values for products that are fine to eat. i think as you said, the solution is the key issue and there are many solutions we can look at. i think it's just really up to
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us. we look at the bulk buying we do at costco and sam clubs, the amount of waste that can occur there is enormous. they provide great value to us but often it's just too much. so we have to think about that and look at how we as consumers can reduce our purchasing. it's fascinating in food service, what is beginning to happen is food service is looking at this and they are donating a lot of their food. e thing that is brilliant is fidel said how do we look at this food waste reduction issue, number one reduce the size of trash cans and reduce the amount of trash cans and they saw the food waste be reduced by 50% by that simple technique alone. i'm not sure if i'm answering your question but there are ways we can do this better and
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smarter and it's just accepted. the shrink, people say that's just what happens because that is what has always been done. but the youth are saying no more of that. the old ways are broken and we're going to do what we can going forward. we have young entrepreneurs creating technologies that can enable us to be more educated about our choices and to take action to reduce the waste that is occurring. >> i think doug's idea needs a lot of work. food has outty. food waste has utility. food is not just caloric in value. the idea of having food that the rest of us won't eat and taking it to the hood and have them eat it is poor compared to the idea of changing our behaviors. taking care of the environment, reducing food waste is not the duty of the poor and shoveling
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it to them i think institution lieses the problem and ratifieses the no, sir cystic value of effect of those best buy, sell by dates. >> i want to add one more thing. i think i would love to see that the eat local campaign took off and people would go to a local restaurant because they have that local owned business, something along a food waste warrior would take off for a retail store. we see places working on waste reduction in how they buy and display their food. instead of a grocery store put a mound of grape fruits put a cardboard box with grape fruits on top of it. these entrepreneurs say how can we display food differently, how do we order food differently?
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having people say -- berkeley bowl was my other example, they are greet about taking produce that is about to turn and do value bags. for a dollar you get a huge amount of value. i go to stores that have that same mind set around food waste. shifts in those ways we need as well. >> there are a lot of points of optimism touched upon here. i think this concept of nudging and behavioral economics is a promising area of study. there is a lot of structure changes that will change people's behavior. the trash can is a good one. think about how you can impact your own environment. thank you for being a great audience. thank you to our panelists. some have to rush off but there is more wine and beer i think.
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stick around and continue the conversation. thank you again to our host. national captioning institute] [applause] cable satellite corp. 2013]
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[captions copyright national able satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] that is one, and two, talking about how it evolves, is the twitter feed the future of our candidates and elected officials? i am curious. >> i will answer the second one first. i actually unfollowed cory ooker. he retweets everyone. he would say, it was great to see you at this event, and then, love you too, bro, kind of childish, kind of unbecoming,
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frankly, for a u.s. senator, but who am i to say the way things -- where things are going? as to guidelines, look, i know from the cnn perspective, and i am certain other news organizations do, we have social media guidelines. lot of it revolves around not tweeting out other unconfirmed information, so-called retweet ournalism. we saw this with mandela, who died. there was some twitter buzz about it, and cnn has pretty strict editorial policies and we have really good journalists, frankly, and they sent around a reminder, let's just wait until we can confirm this, so we played it safe. i do not think -- i did not really see a lot of editorial changes across the board or have heard of any sort of crackdowns. >> it did not seem like there was. >> it did not seem like it, but ben smith said, he did not want his guys tweeting inane crap on twitter, and he said, only tweet smart stuff, and we can go back and look at those tweets and see f he was right or not.
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just do not think so. i think we were all figuring out as it happened on that as you mentioned, and twitter just kind of exploded at some point in 2009, and we kind of never looked back and took a pause and said, are we doing this right? but, again, i do think, i do think -- i do not know if you agree, but the snark has dialed back a little bit.
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my friend scott works for real clear politics, and he is a great reporter, and sometimes he will e-mail me, did you see this thing on twitter? it is so dumb. dude, just close twitter. back away. you'd be surprised. the number of reporters who said i think more clearly, i write more clearly when i am not on twitter all day. it kind of scrambles your brain if that is what you look at first thing in the morning and the last thing you see before bed. it affects your thoughts, and also, twitter is a negative place. not to harp on pew, but pew measured the negativity of different platforms during the 2012 campaign, the tone of people talking about president obama and mitt romney, and twitter was the bottom of the arrel, below facebook. it is just a negative, snarky place, just generally, so that kind of feeds -- you absorb some of that when you're on twitter all day, so i think people are being more judicious.
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again, a number of editors that i talked to said they are going to think more about heading into 2016 about do tweet this, do not weet that. >> going back to those feeds during the debates, getting to a similar level of snark. i would be frightened to go back and look at myself. >> we are supposed to be objective. i guess. >> anymore questions? i want to talk a little about what you were saying before. you had a chance to deeply think about this, so how are you going to approach your job differently, or how have you already begun to view your job -- to approach your job differently? >> well, one thing, as i just said, there are days when i just do not go on twitter. i think that is valuable. one thing that twitter did
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during the 2012 cycle was it made small things seem big. staff hires, endorsements, smalltime endorsements, campaign nfighting. what was called process stories, things that will influence voters, but they are about politics, because everybody in the media was on twitter saying -- reading the same things, and if politico had a story about some focus group thing, all of the other news organizations were inclined to chase it and confirm it, and all of a sudden, we are talking about the same small stuff. a lot of conversations with reporters revealed that amidst all of that, there was the stuff that was really richly reported, the magazine pieces, the long form stuff, where people took a couple of weeks to dig into mitt
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romney's time as a leader in the mormon church in beaumont, or some issues. those things landed with a pretty big impact, because amid all of this sort of surface level snowflake journalism that sort of evaporates on contact, the meatier stuff really stood out. one of the things my colleagues and i do, i do not have to write a story every day. why do i not wait one day or, god forbid, four days, to write something, and then it is richer and more valuable, and i am detect a mat from some people, and that is something i hope to do more of in 2016, maybe stay away from the bubble, the bus nd the plane and camp out.
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>> an issue for buses also. the newsroom. if it is how many pages you are going to get, you can do 12 posts, 5000 page views, or you can do one post and get 0,000. >> yes. editors have to figure out a balance. there will probably still be a horde of twenty-somethings who can crank out copy so they can get those links, but balance that out with reporters they can maybe step back and do bigger sort of pieces. >> one last thing here, and if there is any other questions, go ahead to the mic, but you kind of addressed this a little bit. where is this all going? are we on the cusp of something new and the way it is going to be, or are we in a transition phase, and we are figuring out ow to use this better? rapid response is very simple now. hit back at the reporter publicly, not just e-mail or the
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phone, because the narrative is being set on twitter. people can see this interaction. is that where this is heading? >> again, i do not know. i think that -- first of all, we don't know what kind of platforms will be out there. they are using instagram throughout the campaign. not in a real negative way. it was kind of cool. we just do not know. i talked to casey hunt, who works for the ap now. she mentioned google glass, the glasses that can stream video. i saw some guy wearing one on the plane and it was strange. she said to me, can you imagine a candidate who walks to the back of the plane and sees 15 reporter sitting there with google glasses, and everything is live stream. that is not improbable at all,
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and she and i were both wondering, is that going to impact things. i do not see it getting better. campaigns are going to shut down more. there are still reporters that campaigns are still talk to. it is still valuable to talk to candidates, i think. get in their head, figure out what is in their head, what makes them tick, but, man, it campaigns can deliver the messages on social media with web videos on their own terms, increasingly, they are going to do it. at the end of the day, the mission is to win. you do not want to get thrown off message, and i think if they can control the message, they are going to drive. >> thank you for coming, and this is great. if you have not read it, you should google it. really well done. "did twitter kill the boys on the bus." thank you for coming.
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[applause] >> on the next "washington klei and then founder of voices of plovert discuss historical roots of overty in america. "washington journal" live every morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span. american federation of teachers president randi weingarte snnch our guest this week on newsmakers. she talks about teachers and where american students rank compared to other nations.
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now a congressional gold medal ceremony honoring the military service of native american code talkers. more than 30 native american tribes were recognized at the ceremony. from the u.s. capital, it is just under an hour. >> ladies and gentlemen, the speaker of the house of representatives, john boehner. >> good morning, ladies and gentlemen. welcome to the state capital. we are honored to be joined by those that made this day possible including dan boren from oklahoma. [applause] we are fortunate to have in congress two outstanding
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leaders, two native americans of tom cole and mark mullen. [applause] today we meet to immortalize men who were in no way, meeting for the first -- in a way meeting for the first time. during the second world war, he was a member of the 195th field artillery battalion. one day in 1944, he was walking through an orchard in southern france and heard one of his brethren singing under a tree. he recognized the dialogue and put them to work on opposite ends of the radio. that coincidence brought these men onto the stage of history
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and alongside the elite band that we call code talkers. i ask all of you to join me in welcoming him here and thanking him for his service. [applause] >> edmund and his brothers were at normandy. hey were on hiroshima. -- iwo jima. they mobilized the simplest weapon, language, to thwart the fiercest enemy that free people ever known, and they made a ifference.
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after serving with honor, they did the honorable thing, they kept their service a secret, even to those that they loved. so, these wives and daughters and sons aching to give back to those who gave up so much for them dedicated much of their own lives to unfurl in the truth, not for gain or glory, but just so people would know it is the story that is important, one of them said. many of these families are here today, and join me in applauding their perseverance. [applause] because of them, the deeds that might have well been relegated to legend will now live on in memory. in heroes that for too long went unrecognized, they will not be
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given our highest recognition. it has been the custom of this congress to award gold medals in honor of great acts and great contributions. the first recipient was a general by the name of george ashington in 1776. many names were put forward, but few receive the approval of both houses and the signature of the president of the united states. today, pursuant to hr 4544, we will recognize 33 tribes for dedication, valor, and for sharing what may be the toughest code, what it takes to be the bravest of the brave. they say every metal tells a story, but by adding these men to such lofty ranks, we also mean to add their story. one worth honoring today and one
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worth retelling every day. thank you all for being here. [applause] >> ladies and please stand for the presentation of the colors by the united states armed forces, guard, the singing of our national anthem, and the etiring of the colors. >> ♪
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>> o say can you see by the dawn's early light what so proudly we hailed 1sat the twilight's last gleaming whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight o'er the ramparts we watched ere so gallantly streaming and the rockets red glare the bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night that our flag was still there oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
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' er the land of the free and the home of the brave ♪ >> ♪
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>> please remain standing as the haplain of the united states senate gives the invo vocation. -- invocation. > let us pray. oh, god, our refuge and fortress, we put our trust in you. thank you for this congressional gold medal ceremony that provides long, overdue recognition to native american code talkers of the first and econd world war. we praise you, that you empowered these wind-talkers
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from many native american tribes o creatively use their native, -- native tongue to save the lives of countless thousands who would have perished on distant battlefields. lord, while sacrificing on foreign soil for freedoms they nd their families were often denied at home, they were heroes, proved in liberating strife, who, more than self, their country loved, and mercy more than life. as we celebrate their patriotism, skill, creativity,
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speed and accuracy that made victory in combat possible in spite of daunting odds, challenge us, oh god, to invest ur lives in causes worthy of our last full measure of evotion. we pray in your great name, men. >> please be seated. ladies, united states representative from the fourth district of oklahoma, the honorable tom cole. [applause] >> as a native american, and as a grandson of a career naval officer, the son of a career united states air force noncommissioned officer, and the
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nephew and name sake of a chickasaw uncle that fought and served honorably in japanese prison camps in the philippines on the main island of japan, it is an honor of me to share this moment with each and every one of you. in the long history of american rms, no one has fought against in alliance with and for the united states of america like native americans, and that is true to this day. native americans still enlisted a higher level than any other race or ethnicity in this blessed land and they do so proudly with a determination to defend it. [applause] among the most famous of those warriors are the navajo code talkers of world war ii, but in all, 33 different tribes contributed, pen from my home
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-- 10 from my home state of oklahoma, and three from my district. they saved lives, they won battles, and they did so by giving the united states a unique battlefield advantage, secure communication. all of the first code talkers were americans, but many were not american citizens. that did not come until 924. the code talkers of world war ii were often barred from full participation in american life, that they still served with pride, patriotism, honor, and sacrifice. i am proud that congress is recognizing that unique service. i appreciate my friend dan boren's role in that, and by honoring these code talkers, we honor all native american warriors past, present, and future. good luck. god bless.
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[applause] > ladies and gentlemen, united states representative from the third district of wisconsin, the honorable ron kind. [applause] >> good morning. enator, my colleagues, distinguished guests, the 33 tribes that are the recipients of the congressional gold medal today, and most important to our native american veterans and our code talkers, those that were able to make the trip, and those who are unfortunately still at home, we welcome you. we'll you a debt of gratitude that could never be repaid, and on behalf of a grateful nation we thank you for your service and sacrifice. just a couple of weeks ago in this capital we dedicated the bust of prime minister winston
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churchill, and during the second world war, prime minister churchill was fond of saying that at time of war the truth is so precious that it must always be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies, but in the case of our code talkers, that was not necessary. you spoke the truth, but in the words of your native language, and it worked perfectly. it was not deciphered, decoded. you did it with an extreme degree of accuracy and speed. as edmund knows, in the first 48 iwo jima,he battle of which imo, over 800 battlefield -- you would jima, over 800 battlefield communications were given with 100% accuracy rate typically in less than 30 seconds, when it would take a typical machine of the time close to a half hours
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to decode messages. it was a remarkable ccomplishment that lead to a quicker end to that conflict and saved many lives on both sides. they returned home heroes, but without a heroes welcome. the code was so effective that our military kept it classified and secret until 1968, and even then, it took many more years before the recognition started to take place of what our native american veterans and our code talkers in particular did during that time. it is a remarkable legacy that they share, and a remarkable story that needs to be preserved. hat is why i am here to make one last request from a grateful nation -- to our native american veterans in attendance, and throughout the country, and to our code talkers here and at home, we're asking you to share your stories and make it part of the veterans history project.
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it was legislation i help to advance with the help of many colleagues with the intent to preserve an important part of american history, our veterans stories, and what it was like for them to serve our nation, so that future generations will never forget the service and sacrifice that came before them. today, the veterans history project is housed at the library of congress. we have collected close to 90,000 veterans stories from across the nation during this time. they say it is the world's largest oral history collection, but many more stories are yet to be told. i hope we will be able to follow up with you, edmund, to see if you would be willing to share your story. colonel bob patrick, who heads up the history project, will follow-up with our native american veterans and tribes here in attendance to see if we can get more to participate and share these vital stories. i hope many of you will consider doing so.
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again, on behalf of a grateful nation, we say thank you for your service. may god bless you and your families, all of our veterans and soldiers, wherever they might be serving us throughout the globe today, and may god continue to bless these united states of america. thank you. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, united states senator from the state of south dakota, the honorable tim johnson. [applause] >> good morning, and welcome. it is an honor to be here today as we celebrate the military service of the native american ode talkers.
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i worked for over a decade to honor the code talkers with the congressional gold medal. it is gratifying that this day is finally here. the real work, though, began 95 years ago, when native americans from south dakota and across the country left their homes and joined the military effort in world war i. this came at a time when men native americans were not yet fought citizens but valiantly for our shared homeland. native code talkers were used extensively in the european and pacific theaters during world war ii. the use of native languages was fundamental tactic that saved
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untold numbers of lives and help to win both wars. over the years, i have had the opportunity to visit with several of the code talkers and learn their personal stories. i always walk into those meetings inspired by the dedication to our nation. these men did not seek the limelight, and in fact, there is a tremendous impact to our military that was kept from the public for half of a century. there is no question their contributions were unparalleled, and have had a lasting impact on history. most of the native code talkers have passed away, but we will never forget their heroic actions and are forever grateful