Food loss and waste (FLW) matters in terms of the environment, economy, food security, jobs, and ethics.
In terms of the environment, food loss and waste is responsible for an estimated 8 percent of annual greenhouse gas emissions, consumes a quarter of all water used by agriculture each year, and requires an agricultural area the size of China to grow food that ultimately is not eaten by people.
In terms of the economy, at a global level, the annual market value of food that is lost and wasted is estimated to be an astounding $1.25 Trillion.
In terms of food security, more than 1 billion metric tons of food is lost and wasted per year in a world where one in nine people is still undernourished.
In terms of jobs, reducing food loss and waste might play a modest role in job creation across the supply chain, ranging from jobs for smallholders in processing close to the farm to jobs in technology start-up companies.
In terms of ethics, reducing food loss and waste is considered by many people as simply “the right thing to do.”
The benefits of reducing food loss and waste can be significant. For instance, reducing the current rate of food loss and waste by 50 percent come 2050, we would achieve the following goals aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):
Close the gap between food needed in 2050 and food available in 2010 by more than 20 percent.
Avoid the demand to convert an area of natural ecosystems roughly the size of Argentina into agricultural land between 2010 and 2050.
Lower greenhouse gas emissions by 1.5 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent (Gt CO2 e) per year by 2050, an amount more than the current energy and industry-related emissions of Japan.
Below is a list of practical solutions across the food supply chain, from production all the way through to consumption. If we can all play our part in our areas of relevance, we can project to see a major turn around in the impending food crisis scenario.
Production
Farmers
Improve harvesting practices (e.g., ensure product is harvested at the right maturity and use appropriate harvesting equipment to maximise yield while minimising crop damage).
Improve skills or use tools to better schedule harvesting (including accessing better data on weather).
Engage customers (e.g., wholesalers, retailers) to communicate implications of order changes.
Engage customers to explore changes in quality specifications to enable more of what is harvested to be sold.
Identify financially viable alternative markets or use for crops otherwise left in the field (e.g., value-added processing, donation, secondary surplus markets).
Handling and Storage
Primary Producers
Crop farmers: Improve training in best practices (e.g., handling to reduce damage, drying, fumigation treatments, and on-farm processing). Establish aggregation centres that provide adequate storage and preservation options, such as cooling chambers.
Packinghouses
Adopt best practices to provide the clean, cool, and/or dry conditions required to reduce postharvest losses.
Reexamine handling and storage practices to reduce damage (e.g., use liners in wood and basket containers, reduce the size of sacks or crates to minimise product damage).
Build near-farm facilities to convert unmarketable crops and by-products into value-added products.
Storage Providers:
Use storage containers that protect against temperature variations, humidity and precipitation, and insect and rodent infestation.
Adopt low-cost storage and handling technologies (e.g., hermetic grain storage bags, plastic or metal silos, plastic crates) that prevent spoilage and increase shelf life.
Work with intended users and community experts to design and produce locally relevant storage solutions.
Transport and Logistics Providers:
Improve handling practices during loading and unloading.
Use technology innovations to improve the flow of information (e.g., about road and traffic conditions, as well as the timing of pickup and delivery) to optimise the movement of food.
Introduce (or expand) energy-efficient, clean, low-carbon cold chains from farm to wholesalers.
Work upstream with customers to provide planning tools and handling and storage technologies that help them reduce losses.
Create access to alternative markets for products that cannot be marketed.
Processing and Packaging
Processors and Manufacturers:
Improve training of staff to reduce technical malfunctions and errors during processing.
Reengineer production processes and product design to reduce waste during product line changeovers.
Introduce software and related information and communications technologies to optimise operations (e.g., to identify waste, track the temperature and ensure freshness, assess ripeness, better balance demand and supply forecasts, and accelerate delivery of food).
Use product sizes and packaging that reduce waste by consumers (e.g., accommodate the desire for smaller or customisable portions).
Standardise date labels (e.g., eliminate “sell by” and use only “use by” for perishable items and “best before” for others) to reduce consumer confusion.
Develop new food products or secondary uses (e.g., animal feed or other value-added products) from what cannot be marketed (e.g., fruit trimmings, vegetable peels).
Seek donation of excess food that is still safe to consume (e.g., revise vendor agreements with retailers to allow for donations instead of mandatory destruction).
Packaging Providers:
Invent, design, produce, and mainstream packaging options or coatings (e.g., resins used on pouches or on foods) that extend a product’s shelf life.
Offer packaging that is resealable to allow for incremental consumption and to extend how long the remainder of a product stays suitable for consumption.
Provide commercial customers with a greater variety of packaging sizes to help shoppers purchase the amount appropriate for their needs.
Adjust packaging so it is easier for consumers to empty all the contents.
Distribution and Market
Wholesalers:
Build capacity for better handling and storage practices to reduce mistakes that result in food loss.
Expand cold storage systems during wholesale and logistics to protect products vulnerable to heat damage.
Find food rescue partners or establish online marketplaces that facilitate sale or donation of rejected shipments or short-life products.
Use backhauling (or other logistics solutions) to enable the return of reusable storage containers or rescue of surplus food for people in need.
Invest in technologies to track the temperature and ensure freshness, streamline routing, track movement of goods in and out of warehouses, and monitor food loss and waste.
Retail:
Improve the training of staff in temperature management, product handling, and stock rotation.
Optimise inventory management systems (and increase flexibility in supplier contracts) to better match forecasting and ordering.
Review cosmetic specifications and accept a wider diversity of produce.
Enable consumers to purchase smaller or customised portions (e.g., through bulk bins).
Adjust promotions to avoid the excessive purchase of additional items (e.g. offer half off or mix-and-match deals rather than buy one, get one free offers).
Redesign in-store merchandising to avoid excessive handling of products by consumers (e.g., sort by stage of maturity), and to achieve the desired appearance of abundance but with less damage and excess product (e.g., through smaller bins and bowls).
Educate consumers about better food management (e.g., proper storage, meal planning, understanding date labels, safe food handling, cooking tips).
Participate in groups or associations of informal operators to access guidance and training in best practices in food handling and storage.
Take advantage of municipal support to access clean water, storage areas, equipment that improves food safety, and training in how to reduce food contamination.
Use practices that minimise damage such as handling produce gently, stacking properly (e.g., to avoid bruising delicate produce), marking cases to track inventory, and rotating stock following a “first-in-first-out” method.
Ensure that displays allow air to be circulated and temperature conditions to be appropriate for product to remain fresh (e.g., high-ethylene producers should be kept away from ethylene-sensitive commodities).
Avoid sprinkling unclean water on products (to minimise wilting and shrivelling) as such practices result in unsafe foods shunned by buyers.
Consumption
Households:
Buy only what you expect to eat: check the refrigerator and cupboards before shopping, use a shopping list, and plan meals in advance.
Know the difference between “use by” (which is about food safety) and “best before” (which is about quality and still safe to eat after this date).
Freeze or preserve fresh produce before it spoils, and find out how to best store different fruits and vegetables so they stay fresh and safe longer.
Find creative ways to use leftover ingredients and products past their peak quality (e.g., in soups, sauces, smoothies, banana bread), as well as to cook the parts you may not normally eat (e.g., stems, cores).
Organise the kitchen and refrigerator so that items do not get lost and spoil.
Restaurants:
Engage staff on food waste reduction (e.g., explain why reduction is important, give tips on waste reduction, reward staff who deliver against targets).
Shift away from preparation methods such as batch cooking, casserole trays, and buffets to reduce overproduction and repurpose excess food (e.g., offer customers “doggy bags,” safely incorporate unused items into other dishes, sell excess food at a discount, donate unsold food).
Revisit inventory management and purchasing practices (as well as menus) to better fit needs based on historical trends and waste data.
Use scales in the kitchen to weigh food and track items most commonly wasted (and estimate the financial cost of food disposed of, thus creating a financial signal to waste less).
Consider whether portions served, exceed what can be eaten, and rethink promotions that encourage over purchasing by customers.
Hotels:
Engage staff on food waste reduction (e.g., explain why reduction is important, give tips on waste reduction, and reward staff who deliver against targets).
Rethink the buffet (e.g., shift certain items to à la carte near the end of mealtimes, reduce the size of dishes used in buffets).
Reduce overproduction by producing smaller quantities of items consistently left on the plate.
Repurpose excess food (e.g., by safely incorporating unused items into other dishes, or by donating it).
Communicate to guests about food waste and encourage them to take only as much as they need.
Catering/Foodservice:
Engage staff on food waste reduction (e.g., explain why reduction is important, give tips on waste reduction, and reward staff who deliver against targets).
Reduce the amount overproduced (e.g., by producing smaller quantities of items that are consistently under-consumed).
Repurpose excess food (e.g., by safely incorporating unused items into other dishes, or by donating it).
Use scales in the kitchen to weigh food and track items most commonly wasted (and estimate the financial cost of food disposed of, thus creating a financial signal to waste less).
Evaluate contractual obligations between clients and suppliers that generate waste and overproduction (e.g., contracts that stipulate that all hot dishes must be available for the full-service period).
Public and Private Institutions:
Engage staff on food waste reduction (e.g., explain why reduction is important, give tips on waste reduction, and reward staff who deliver against targets).
Reduce the amount overproduced (e.g., by producing smaller quantities of items that are consistently under-consumed), and repurpose excess food (e.g., by safely incorporating unused items into other dishes, or by donating it).
Introduce techniques to minimise people taking excessive portions (e.g., trayless dining, flexible portion sizes, pay-by-weight pricing system, smaller plates).
Revisit inventory management and procurement practices (as well as menus) to better fit needs based on historical trends and waste data.
Use scales in the kitchen to weigh food and track items most commonly wasted (and estimate the financial cost of food disposed of, thus creating a financial signal to waste less).
Policymakers:
Embed into agricultural extension services (and in farmer subsidy programs) food loss reduction awareness, technical assistance, and financial aid.
Develop, facilitate, promote, and/or improve climate-smart infrastructure (e.g., roads, electricity, irrigation, community storage) and access to it, especially for smallholder farmers who live far from markets.
Increase investment in agricultural research related to postharvest loss and provide incentives for the adoption of postharvest technologies (e.g., zero-rates tax on imported postharvest technologies, incentives for local manufacturers of postharvest technologies, subsidies for postharvest technologies).
Implement policies to prevent unfair trading practices (e.g., last-minute order cancellations and unilateral or retroactive changes to contracts).
Remove barriers to food redistribution via policies (e.g., liability limitations, tax breaks) that make it easier for food suppliers to donate safe (but unsold) food to charities or to those in need.
Support policies to standardize food date labelling practices to reduce confusion about product safety and quality, and improve consumer understanding of the meaning of date labels.
Include food waste reduction lessons in school curricula and include food waste reduction training in public procurement programs.
Provide municipal support for informal retailers to access clean water, storage areas, equipment that improves food safety, and training in how to reduce food contamination.
Make measurement and reporting of food loss and waste by large companies mandatory.
Financiers:
Increase the number of philanthropic institutions funding food loss and waste prevention activities.
Create financing instruments and product lines (e.g., funds, bonds, loans) dedicated to reducing food loss and waste.
Increase start-up financing for new technologies and business models that would reduce food loss and waste, as well as financing to scale up proven technologies and models.
Increase development cooperation between high-income and low-income countries targeting food loss and waste.
Introduce “pay-as-you-go” programs to make technologies affordable for smaller operations (e.g., for solar-powered refrigeration units and mobile processing).
Innovators and intermediaries:
Develop and improve the availability of processing and preservation facilities (including aggregation centres and mobile low-carbon options).
Develop alternative outlets during peak season through organizing export opportunities to markets with other seasonalities.
For unmarketable crops, improve the flow of information to find alternative buyers, promote financially viable alternative markets, or develop new outlets (e.g., as processed foods, industrial products, animal feed).
Apply innovations to reduce delays for imported products during the point of exit and entry, which extends the shelf life of perishable products.
Leverage technology and digital solutions to rethink and better coordinate key processes between suppliers and customers in a more organised and informed way
Researchers:
Research new and innovative technologies to preserve food quality and extend shelf life.
Develop innovative products from perishable food commodities, such as fruits and vegetables, to promote whole food utilisation.
Undertake research to fill data gaps and standardise reporting of food loss and waste data in order to better compare results, create benchmarks, and provide clearer direction for stakeholders.
Assess the impact of interventions to improve the evidence base of what works and the return on investment.
Develop sector-specific guidance that provides motivation and technical information for businesses to take action (e.g., promote industry roadmaps for food loss and waste reduction).
Civil Society:
Raise awareness and shift social norms so that food loss and waste is considered “unacceptable” for all, including higher-income consumers.
Encourage public and private sector leaders to pursue the Target-Measure-Act strategy.
Act as a channel for the sharing and reporting of food waste data and progress.