Building Maine’s Food Processing Infrastructure: A Circular Food Systems Map for Maine

Abstract:

My internship, for the last few months, has allowed me the privilege to work for the UMaine Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions. A few years ago at the Mitchell Center, they identified that eliminating food waste was the most important issue to solve in order to create a more sustainable waste system for Maine. In order to accomplish the goal of eliminating food waste, they created six solutions that strive to also achieve the “Triple Bottom Line”; People, Planet, and Profit. My specific solution is Solution 4: to Build Maine’s Food Processing Infrastructure. My focus in this specific solution is on creating a GIS map that can be used as a tool to help create this processing infrastructure. I aim to do this by building relationships between farmers, producers, and consumers through the map. In order to accomplish the creation and initial building of this map, our team has researched and met with stakeholders to see if there is a need for this map; if there is this need, then what the map should look like. I also found previous maps that had been created (by suggestion and research) to find out what some of the “best practices'' are, in regards to mapping a food processing system in any aspect. We have used this research moving forward to identify the need for a map like this in Maine, and are looking to start creating this map very soon. Our overall goal for this map is to help reduce food waste.

Keywords: Maine, food, food waste, food processing

Authors: