New partnership turns excess food from Chicago area Mariano's stores into compost, natural gas

CBS News

29-04-2025

Surplus food from grocery stores cannot be donated or eaten, so typically, it all ends up in a landfill.
But a brand-new program at the Chicago area grocery store chain Mariano's is changing that — and the program is already keeping one million pounds of food from piling up with garbage.
For the effort, Mariano's collects fruits and vegetables, prepared food from the hot buffet, and other items that can't be sold or donated because they are no longer safe to eat.
"There's some waste that just can't really — isn't really consumable," said Amanda Puck, vice president and communications of brand development for Mariano's, whom Chicagoans may also remember as the original host of the WTTW-Channel 11 program "Check, Please!"
That non-consumable food used to end up in the garbage. Such is not the case anymore.
"Doing a project like this for us really puts it into perspective of how we can really all make a difference with food waste," Puck said.
Now, that food is transported from Mariano's stores to Green Era's campus in the South Side's Auburn Gresham neighborhood, where right on site, it is processed and then converted into natural gas — renewable energy — using a technology called anaerobic digestion.
In anaerobic digestion, microorganisms break down the food waste without oxygen — leaving biogas and nutrient-rich compost as byproducts. The biogas is then converted into clean and high-quality renewable natural gas, Green Era explains on its website.
That natural gas goes right back into the gas grid. Meanwhile, the compost is used to grow new produce.
Green Era is the only anaerobic digestion facility in the Midwest.
"We can actually put expired sodas, expired cans into the digester, because it can actually cut through the metal," said Puck.
With the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimating that more than 130 billion pounds of food going to waste in the U.S. annually on the retail level, the Mariano's/Green Era program is making a difference.
"The biggest message coming out of this is, what can we all do in terms of not wasting food?" said Puck.
Mariano's started the program at its store in southwest suburban Evergreen Park (2559 W. 95th St.) in 2023, and later expanded it to the Oak Lawn location (11000 S. Cicero Ave.). Seven Chicago Mariano's and one more suburban store are being added to the program in the wake of its success — West Loop (40 S. Halsted St.), South Loop (1615 S. Clark St.), Bridgeport (3145 S. Ashland Ave.), Edgewater (5201 N. Sheridan Rd.), Ukrainian Village (2021 W. Chicago Ave.), New City (1500 N. Clybourn Ave.), Lakeshore East (333 E. Benton Pl.), and west suburban Westmont (150 W. 63rd St.).
Mariano's has already kept 1 million pounds of food out of landfills through this partnership. Green Era and Mariano's noted that 1 million pounds of food waste is enough to fill 30 large dump trucks end to end.
A million pounds of food waste diverted also mitigates over 1 million pounds of carbon emissions — the equivalent of taking 116 cars of the road for a whole year. It also generates almost 1,000 MMBTUs, or 1 billion BTUs, of natural gas heat — enough to power 270 homes for a month.
A million pounds of food waste diverted further creates 30,000 pounds of clean compost — or enough to grow up to 50 tons of fresh vegetables, Mariano's and Green Era said.
"It's a clean sustainable way to fight climate change, grow opportunity, and also build a greener future right here in Chicago," said Jason Feldman, chief executive officer and co-founder of Green Era Sustainability.