Walmart turns its food waste into compost now sold in 100 stores
The largest U.S. retailer has cut food waste 12 percent since 2016, working toward a 50 percent reduction by 2030. Read More

Walmart will stock the garden departments of at least 600 U.S. stores with compost made out of food waste collected from its grocery operations.
ReCirculate is made by Denali, a 10-year-old organic recycler that has been collecting food waste since July at more than 1,400 Walmart and Sam’s Club locations in 16 markets, including Dallas, Houston, Indianapolis, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. Walmart manages 4,700 stores across the U.S.
The compost will be priced just under $7 per one-cubic-foot bag. It’s Denali’s first retail product to market the use of unsalable food as an ingredient. ReCirculate will be sold initially in eight states where Walmart stores sell high quantities of soil supplements: Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Walmart’s purchasing team picked the locations.
7 million tons diverted annually
Walmart, the largest U.S. grocery retailer, has pledged to reduce the operational food waste generated by its stores 50 percent by 2030, compared with a 2016 baseline. So far, it has managed a 12 percent cut, after some recalculations. For example, it turns outdated bread into croutons used for salads or into crostinis. Rotisserie chicken might eventually turn up in salads.
The retailer is also seeking ways to cut the amount of methane generated by the organic materials it sends to landfills, by processing it in different ways. Walmart diverts 78 percent of all its waste from landfills.
Spoiled produce, expired meats and dairy products, out-of-date bread and beverages, and other foods unsold by grocery retailers contribute to an estimated 4.4 million tons in U.S. food waste annually. At least half of those organic materials wind up in landfills, where they contribute to rising methane emissions. There’s also a clear economic impact: a loss of about $3.6 billion across the industry in unsold inventory.
Walmart is among the seven retail signatories of the U.S. Food Waste Pact, coordinated by nonprofit ReFed and World Wildlife Fund, that requires organizations to set a food waste reduction goal and report regularly on progress. The other retailers are Ahold Delhaize, Aldi, Albertsons, Amazon Fresh, Kroger and Whole Foods.

Denali’s business model
Denali picked up and recycled 7 million tons of food waste in 2023, recycling it into animal feed, biodiesel, compost, mulch and soils. Its customers include stadiums, hotels, food production facilities and retailers. The company estimates those collection and mitigation efforts represent the equivalent of taking 100,000 gas-powered cars off the road for a year.
Walmart is the first retailer to use Denali’s “depackaging” technology, Zero De-Pack, which makes it simpler for stores to separate produce and other food from cardboard boxes, metal cans, plastic containers and wrappers. The two have been collaborating for two years.
“It’s great to see unique partnerships at the food recycling level,” said Jackie Suggitt, vice president of business initiatives and community engagement at ReFed. Many grocers are using technology and other best practices to prevent waste in the first place, but we’re always going to have food that will require attention at the end of its life, she said.
Denali provides bins with a capacity of three cubic yards, where retailers deposit food waste on a daily basis. Denali’s fleet of 1,300 trucks empty them on a weekly basis or when the bins are full. The depackaging equipment handles the separation automatically at one of its facilities.
The compost being sold in Walmart’s stores will contain organic matter collected from all of Denali’s customers, not just Walmart. Denali collects “from thousands of retail locations, so it’s difficult to say that a specific food waste item went into a bag that originated from a specific retailer,” said Eric Speiser, chief revenue officer.
Denali is gathering data to create a life-cycle analysis of the emissions associated with processing and transporting ReCirculate to retailers, compared with similar products.
Generally speaking, turning organic matter into compost is far less-intensive than allowing it to decay in landfills, Suggitt said. “It comes down to how far it’s being transported, is it replacing fertilizer, is it being used?” she said.
Denali works with a network of two dozen compost facilities and also sells compost in bulk to garden and nursery outlets, builders, golf courses and landscapers.
Denali’s other products, such as animal feed, are custom-blended for farmers, ranchers and aquaculture operations, Speiser said. Its biodiesel and lubricants are sold to automotive companies.
Editor’s note: This story was updated Feb. 3, 2025, to include a comment from Denali.
[Gain insights to move beyond incremental action and accelerate the shift to a circular economy at Circularity, April 29-May 1, Denver, CO.]
