Toward a Circular Food System
United States
Americas
Cornell University
Project Overview
Anabel’s Grocery is a student-run nonprofit initiative at Cornell University that aims to provide fresh, affordable, nutritious, and locally-sourced food to students. As a student leader at Anabel’s, I have been particularly interested in reducing the store’s carbon footprint through container and food waste. For the former, I aimed to reduce our distribution of egg cartons, plastic containers, and paper cups and bags by 50 percent from last fall to this fall by encouraging customers to bring their own reusable containers through incentive programs. For the latter, I hosted biweekly pop-ups with discounted produce to sell our local cabbage, broccoli, beets, carrots, and other locally-grown vegetables before they reached the compost pile, and co-launched a Free Food Fridge with a group of other undergraduate students to divert excess food from campus events and cafes. I intend to continue these efforts in the spring to help catalyze a culture of circularity among the Cornell student body — and to bring Anabel’s one step closer to its zero waste goals.
Project Impact
1. First, I established prices for our disposable ware such as plastic containers and kombucha cups, and more rigorously enforced existing prices for egg cartons and paper grocery bags. I trained 40+ Anabel's Grocery staff members on the new pricing scheme and on how to frame this initiative to customers. We gave all of these items out for free in the first week of opening so that shoppers could take them and bring them back in future weeks to reuse at no cost. Upon tracking the metrics from this initiative, I discovered that we gave away or sold around 150-200 egg cartons each week in Spring 2024, compared to around 50-100 egg cartons each week in Fall 2024, for a 54% decrease in egg carton distribution. We sold around 40 paper grocery bags each week in Spring 2024, compared to around 20 paper grocery bags each week in Fall 2024, for a 65% decrease in paper bag sales. Staff have noticed more customers bringing back their own egg cartons and reusable cloth grocery bags, and some customers have begun using our free cardboard boxes in which we receive deliveries so that they can avoid purchasing a paper bag.
2. Second, I launched a free food fridge (a “Freedge”) in Cornell's religious and spiritual hub in collaboration with student leaders of three other Cornell University student organizations: Basic Needs Coalition, Food Recovery Network, and Dilmun Hill Student Farm. The Freedge stocks excess food from campus cafes and leftover food from campus events to prevent it from being wasted. Since its inception this fall, the Freedge has provided over 600 free meals to students, many of whom are food insecure or lack the time or money to consistently eat meals.
2. I held produce pop-ups on alternate Mondays, setting excess produce from Dilmun Hill Student Farm (a farm run by Cornell students) at 50% off so that I could sell it before having to compost it. These pop-ups enabled me to find homes for nearly 90 pounds of excess produce such as bell peppers, eggplant, celery, kale, kohlrabi, yellow and red onions, chard, and squash.
Overall, I would describe these three projects as a success! While I will be graduating in 1.5 years, the Anabel's staff is keen to continue these initiatives beyond my time at Cornell, and I am currently working on creating instruction manuals for all three of the aforementioned initiatives so that they can persist into the future.
Millennium Fellows Involved
Trisha Bhujle