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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

consumer food waste

Food Waste Innovators Wanted

If we could pick one thing in the entire food space that technology could truly solve, it would be food *waste.* It has always been an issue that has a ripple effect up and down the food chain, and the statistics have only gotten worse since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020.

The team at the food waste non-profit ReFED works daily to provide data-driven solutions to reduce waste and loss in the food system — and that work is the topic at the 2022 Food Waste Solutions Summit held this year on May 10-12 in Minneapolis, MN.

Food waste doesn’t just happen at the consumer level, though about one-third of the 1.4 billion tons of waste happens after the food has been placed on retail shelves or taken home to consumer kitchens. But food waste – or food loss, as some experts note – also happens earlier in the supply chain, either during manufacturing, transportation and at the very beginning at the agricultural level.

Part of the Food Waste Solutions Summit is to discover and discuss innovations designed to tackle food waste at all levels of the food chain. The Spoon has partnered with ReFED to host a session showcasing innovative technology solutions to reduce food waste, specifically in agriculture, supply chain, and consumer categories — and we’re on the hunt for the creators, entrepreneurs and problem-solvers innovating in those categories to come and tell us their story.

Applications to speak during this innovation showcase are open through Friday, March 4. If you lead any organization innovating in the above-named categories, fill out the quick application. If selected, speakers will be included in a brief “fireside chat”-style conversation with the session moderator and audience Q&A. 

We’re looking forward to meeting and hearing from food businesses, funders, policymakers, entrepreneurs and non-profits all working to solve this complex, global issue. For more info on the 2022 Food Waste Solutions Summit hosted by ReFED, visit their site.

*Note: The Spoon is a media partner for this event; this post is not part of any paid campaign.*

Apeel Unites Avocado Suppliers Through an Expanded Network Fighting Food Waste

Apeel Sciences announced today that more than 20 leading suppliers from the global avocado industry have joined its network in an effort to keep more food out of landfills. New partners from the U.S., Latin America, and Europe will use Apeel’s plant-based coating technology that extends the life of fruits and vegetables, according to a press release sent to The Spoon. Doing so will further reduce food waste at consumer-facing levels like retail and the home.

Apeel’s technology, which is a food-safe powder coating made from plant oils, acts as a barrier that keeps water and oxygen out of the produce items to which it is applied. While the company is working with a few different produce types, among them asparagus and citrus fruits — it’s best known for its avocado coating. Apeel-coated avocados can be found in major U.S. grocery stores. The company said today that in 2020, it kept roughly 5 million avocados out of the landfill, and promises “much greater impacts” in 2021.

Keeping food out of landfills isn’t just a matter of saving grocery retailers and consumers money (though that’s an important benefit). Food waste is a leading contributor to climate change, and produce is one of the most common types of foods to go to waste. Recently, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that 14 percent of the world’s food is lost between the harvest and retail stages of the supply chain.

Apeel’s technology builds time into that food supply chain by extending the shelf life of produce that’s in transit and, depending on the region it’s in, may not have the advantage of cold chain infrastructure to aid in the preservation process. And as CEO James Rogers told me last year, building this time into the supply chain allows produce to reach exporters before it goes bad. Meanwhile, joining Apeel’s network can mean greater access to retail markets for many suppliers. 

“[Food is] only valuable if the underlying infrastructure is there to make it valuable,” he said.

Among those suppliers joining the Apeel network are El Parque in Chile and Agricola Cerro Prieto in Peru. In the U.S., companies like Calavo, Del Monte, and West Pak have also joined the network.

UNEP: 931M Tons of Food Sold to Consumers Gets Wasted

A total of 931 million tons, or 17 percent, of food sold at consumer-facing levels was thrown out in 2019, according to a new report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and partner organization WRAP. This includes food sold to retail (e.g., the grocery store) and foodservice businesses, as well as consumer households.

The Food Waste Index 2021 report, released this week, examine’s the world’s progress on the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 12.3, which aims to halve per capita global food waste at retail and consumer levels.

In its own words, the Index 2021 report “sheds new light on the magnitude of food waste, and on the prevalence of household food waste on all continents, irrespective of country income levels.”

It also notes that until now, the scale of the world’s food waste problem hasn’t been fully understood. A previous 2011 estimate from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) famously found that one-third of all the world’s food goes to waste. However, researchers acknowledged “a lack of household food waste data outside of Europe and North America at the time of their estimate. Now, the Index 2021 suggests that consumer-level food waste is “more than twice the previous FAO estimate” and that it is found “to be broadly similar across country income groups. This deviates from the oft-told narrative that consumer-level food waste mainly happens in developed nations, while food production and transportation losses are the territory of developing countries. 

Mapping 152 food waste data points across 54 countries, the report also found:

  • Of the 931 million tons of food wasted at consumer levels, 61 percent came from households, 26 percent from foodservice, and 13 percent from retail. 
  • Roughly 8–10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions are associated with food not consumed.
  • A total of 690 million people worldwide were hungry in 2019, and that number is expected to rise.
  • Worldwide, 3 billion people “cannot afford a healthy diet.”

The report does more than simply highlight these rather bleak statistics. In an effort to support SDG 12.3, it also includes a methodology by which countries can measure their food waste at consumer-facing levels. “Countries using this methodology will generate strong evidence to guide a national strategy on food waste prevention, that is sufficiently sensitive to pick up changes in food waste over two- or four-year intervals, and that enables meaningful comparisons between countries globally.”

Reducing food waste can cut greenhouse gas emissions, lessen pollution, conserve land and other resources, and make food more available worldwide. The UNEP’s new analysis and methodology aims to do that by helping more countries around the world take actions driven by more and better data about food waste.