The United States wastes approximately 40 percent of the food it produces, and much of this waste occurs at the consumer-facing level, according to the national Food Recovery Network’s website.

The Food Recovery Network (FRN) is the largest student movement against food waste and hunger in America. NMU recently started a chapter and now has seven members who met in Jamrich on Monday, Dec. 4 to call for volunteers and inform the campus on the start of their efforts.

The first FRN chapter in the Upper Peninsula aims to reduce food waste and hunger in the community. The group completed their first food recovery last week by taking leftover food from the Marketplace at NMU’s Dining Services to The Warming Center.

“We have all this extra food that otherwise would go to land- fills and release terrible methane emissions,” said President of the NMU Chapter of the FRN Bryce DeMers, junior biology major.

NMU’s Dining Services is working with the FRN by packaging unsold surplus food for student volunteers to deliver. Next semester, the chapter hopes to expand their recovered food delivery locations to places like the Salvation Army, Beacon House, St. Vincent DePaul, Janzen House and the Women’s Center, DeMers said.