Globally, there’s a distinction between food loss and waste.
Food loss: the decrease in the quantity or quality of food resulting from decisions and actions by food supply chain actors from the production stage up to, but excluding, retailers, food service
providers and consumers.
Food waste: the decrease in the quantity or quality of food resulting from decisions and actions by retailers, food service providers and consumers.
Food loss and waste include the edible and inedible parts of food and occur for many reasons, from spoilage, inaccurate forecasting, over-ordering and process loss to households throwing out uneaten food.
Imagine that every time you go to the supermarket, you deliberately leave one of your three bags of food behind.
It simply wouldn’t happen. It’d be a complete waste of money, food and time.
However, across the global food supply chain, that’s what occurs, every single day. Acting to address this has the potential to benefit individuals, organizations and society.
A third of all food grown is lost or wasted, while 24% of all water used in agriculture is used on food that ultimately will not be consumed by humans.
The direct impact of food loss and waste – not being used to feed people who need it – is hugely significant, given that 828 million people globally, or almost one in ten, are affected by hunger.
There is a clear impetus for society to act, given that the impact of food loss and waste goes far beyond undernourishment.
In addition to wasting valuable water, energy, fuel and land, food loss and waste produce methane when it rots in landfill. Approximately 6-8% of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions come from food waste. In terms of impact, the food lost or wasted in the US alone is the equivalent to the greenhouse gas produced by 32.6m cars. If ‘food waste’ was a country, it would be the world’s third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses, behind China and the US.
Global food waste has been on the UN’s agenda for a while now. UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12.3 aims to halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses by 2030.
That’s an ambitious goal – and it’s incumbent on us to raise awareness and understanding of the potential impacts. A 2022 survey, for example, invited global food and beverage companies to highlight their top 15 ESG challenges – reducing food loss and waste didn’t make the list.
Acting on food loss and waste is a significant opportunity for organizations – and, from a business perspective, it can be hugely impactful.
Research has shown that for every dollar invested into reducing food loss and waste, $14 is saved in operating costs. That 14-fold return on investment (ROI) can either be saved or reinvested into other sustainability initiatives that require financial support. Businesses can create their own, positive sustainability story.
Add the potential environmental and societal benefits, and the business case for addressing food loss and waste is incredibly compelling.
The opportunity that is present right now for every food organization across the supply chain is to be a true leader in food loss and waste. Reduction is step one, however the goal for businesses is to eliminate food loss and waste altogether – and, with the right assistance, processes and procedures, elimination is achievable.
Understanding food loss and waste
When we think about food loss and waste, we may revert to our own experiences.
From a personal perspective, we might think of food in our fridge that is thrown out after its sell-by date. From a business perspective, maybe it's a 5% waste tolerance on a production line. However, food loss and waste occur all the way through the journey from farm to plate.
Across the globe, different challenges are evident.
For example, in developing countries, farm practices and getting food to processing are the biggest hurdles to overcome, while in many developed countries, the challenges are spread more evenly across the whole supply chain. In China, a great deal of work is being undertaken to build the infrastructure needed to reduce food loss from farm to processing, while in France, retailers have been forbidden to destroy unsold food products since 2016.
The Food Recovery Hierarchy
While the goal for every organization should be eliminating food loss and waste, good practice is to repurpose or redirect if elimination is not yet possible.
Sending food waste to landfill is the last resort, and businesses can look at alternate uses for food waste.
The Food Recovery Hierarchy, published by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, details a series of actions organizations can take to divert wasted food.
After eliminating food waste in the first instance, these include, in order of preference:
● Feeding hungry people (donating to food banks, soup kitchens and shelters).
● Feeding animals (donating food scraps to animal feed).
● Industrial uses (providing waste oil for rendering and fuel conversion, and food scraps for digestion to recover energy).
● Compost (create a nutrient-rich soil amendment).
What organizations need to consider to reduce and eliminate food loss and waste
For many organizations, the food loss and waste question has often been tackled from the perspective of ‘what shall we do with it’, rather than ‘how can we reduce it’.
While doing something other than sending food loss and waste to landfill is essential, reducing the amount of food loss and waste you’re dealing with in the first place must be a key focus.
First, you need to be able to identify it. Assess your processes and supply chain – where does the waste happen?
A key element of this process – just as it is in any food safety assessment – is to walk through your facilities and identify any ‘hot spots’ in which food loss or waste is happening. Analyze why it’s happening.
From there, it’s imperative to analyze systems and processes to understand what could be done to prevent or reduce that loss or waste. It could be a process that needs refining, or equipment or software that needs updating or a behavioral change from the people who work on the production line.
For example, in some manufacturing plants, automated processes using robotics may have quickened production lines, but increased waste. Would a slower production line with less waste actually be more efficient and effective?
It could be that the tolerances built into lean processes aren’t optimized for reducing food loss and waste; speed may have been prioritized over product losses.
Across the industry, meanwhile, all food isn’t treated equally. Because of pricing, certain food commodities are more highly valued than others. While this is understandable and helps control the production of certain food types, it creates a throwaway culture for other, less expensive foods.
By assessing where your food waste hot spots are, and exploring with suppliers where it happens right across the food supply chain, you can begin to understand the scale of the issue – and the scale of the potential impact.
For waste not so easily eradicated, solutions can be identified – for example, new product lines using repurposed food that would have previously gone to waste, or online marketplaces that can connect buyers and sellers.
How businesses can build their food waste reduction strategy
Food loss and waste impacts everyone involved in the food supply chain, from farming to consumers, and affects various issues from hunger and food security to GHG emissions.
A significant opportunity exists for food manufacturers and retailers to take a leading position on food loss waste. By leading by example, and talking to suppliers, buyers and consumers about tactics to reduce waste, as well as the impact small changes can have, businesses can become trusted voices in this space.
From a consumer messaging perspective, highlighting the financial savings to be gained by only buying food that’s going to be eaten, or options to increase the shelf life of some foods, is a strong complement to reducing the environmental impact.
From a business perspective, educating staff on the impact of a reduction in food waste, from the financial to the environmental – as well as the positive brand story it can create – is hugely powerful.
And, while many businesses donate unused food to food rescue services today, donating food to those in need can still be built into business plans – deliberately giving those services the choice of the food they want to receive when they are able to receive it.
Tackling food loss and waste is a big prospect, with enormous nuance and complexity – and one that needs to be tackled intelligently and deliberately.
New processes, measurements and evaluation frameworks are needed to help organizations achieve food waste reduction.
For businesses that get it right; however, the potential impact on the bottom line, the environment and society, is enormous.
