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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

food loss

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.*

Witness the Many Forms of Food Waste Innovation

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Since the start of 2021, we’ve seen numerous developments that showcase how vast and varied the efforts to fight food waste have become. Sachets that slow food spoilage. Hyperspectral imaging to analyze avocados. Vodka made from old crackers. A skincare line. 

All of these examples (and many others) underscore both the need for innovation and the fact that we’re getting more of it nowadays when it comes to food waste. Food waste, after all, is a global problem with environmental, monetary, and human consequences. To mitigate climate change and build a more resilient food system, the planet needs to meet food waste reduction targets set down by the United Nations, the USDA, the EPA, and others, including the UN Sustainable Development Goal of cutting food waste in half by 2050 (UN SDG Target 12.3.1).

Even just a few years ago, both the issues and the UN goal were mere abstraction to many outside the food industry. After all, it’s hard to visualize statistics like “one-third of the world’s food goes to waste” or “food waste’s global footprint is 3.3 billion tons of CO2 equivalent of greenhouse gases.”

Fortunately, groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), ReFED, the World Wildlife Fund, and others have worked tirelessly over the last several years to bring the topic of food waste closer to center stage in the conversations about our food system. In fact, ReFED estimates that the total amount of food wasted in the U.S. has leveled off since 2016, while food waste per capita has decreased 2 percent over the last three years. Meanwhile, investment is slowly but surely trickling into the space, with companies like Apeel, Imperfect Foods, and Silo closing large rounds of funding in the last several months.

Still, there is a lot of work to be done, which is where innovation can play a big role. Food waste happens at every stage of the food supply chain, from items left in the field to rot to those dumped own the drain or sent to the landfill. To curb the waste, we need more investment in the kind of infrastructure that can measure, rescue, and recycle organic waste and prevent it from going to landfills and incinerators. We also need a huge collective effort from food producers, manufacturers, retailers, restaurants, capital providers, and others, with innovation at the center of those actions. 

Many are already bringing new technologies and processes to the food supply chain to try and make waste less possible. One need only glance briefly at the level of innovation currently happening around food waste to understand the breadth of entrepreneurs, companies, and agencies using their collective brainpower to build more food-waste-fighting solutions.

But rather than read a big ol’ list of companies, I instead encourage you to join us next week, on June 16, for the Food Waste Insights + Innovation Forum. The Spoon has teamed up with ReFed for the all-virtual event, which will include chats with experts across the food supply chain as well as panels and innovator demos.

At this event, we want to highlight innovators in the food waste space, acknowledging the work of companies developing everything from biosensing technology for the supply chain to shelf-life extension tools for grocery retailers to those evolving and improving the date-labeling system in the U.S. Add grocery order automation, upcycling, solutions to at-home food waste, and many other areas to that list.

The event will also connect innovators — whether you’re onstage or in the audience — with investors and capital, and will even include a session dedicated to how companies can go about raising money for their company. An open networking/demo time will also allow investors to ask one-on-one questions to innovators and vice versa.

Got ideas you want to share about how to reduce food waste? Or maybe you’re looking for a new idea or partner to help supercharge your own company’s efforts in this area, or you just want to learn more about this growing movement. Whichever the case, register today for this half-day event.

More Food Tech Headlines

LIVEKINDLY Collective Acquires Seaweed Burger Maker, The Dutch Weed Burger – The Dutch Weed Burger makes a range of meat analogs using seaweed as the hero ingredient. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Print a Drink 3D Prints Designs Inside a Cocktail, Develops Smaller Machine for Corporations – Print a Drink has created two working robots (one in the U.S. and one in Europe) that can print out custom designs inside drinks.

NPD: Shipments of Plant-Based Proteins to Restaurants Up 60 Percent Year Over Year – Shipments of plant-based proteins from foodservice distributors to commercial restaurants were up 60 percent year-over-year in April of 2021.

ReFed and Others Introduce a New Policy Action Plan to Fight Food Waste

Several organizations banded together this week to release the US Food Loss & Waste Policy Action Plan, which calls on the Biden administration and Congress to take more action when it comes to fighting food waste. ReFed, the World Wildlife Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic (FLPC) are founding supporters of the new plan.

Between 30 and 40 percent of all food produced is lost or wasted, with $408 billion spent in the U.S. alone to grow, process, transport, and store food that is never consumed, according to an email from ReFed sent to The Spoon. Food waste is also a major contributor to climate change, with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimating its global footprint to be 3.3 billion tons of CO2 equivalent of greenhouse gases.

“Addressing this challenge is essential to building a regenerative and resilient food system that helps to mitigate climate change, reverse nature loss, and delivery positive outcomes for both producers and consumers,” notes the new plan.

To do that, the above organizations have compiled a list of recommendations for Congress and the Biden administration that would aid in the goal of reducing food waste and loss by 50 percent by 2030 (in accordance with the UN SDG Target 12.3.1). 

The US Food Loss & Waste Policy Action plan makes five recommendations, as noted by ReFed’s email: 

  • Invest in the infrastructure to measure, rescue, recycle, and prevent organic waste from entering landfills and incinerators
  • Expand incentives to institutionalize surplus food donation and strengthen regional supply chains
  • Assert the US Government’s leadership on FLW globally and domestically
  • Educate and activate consumers via private and public food waste behavior change campaigns
  • Require a national date labeling standard

The plan, which you can download and read in full here, outlines each of these recommendations and delves into specifics as to what action steps might be taken by Congress and the Administration. 

ReFed earlier this year unveiled its new Insights Engine, an online hub for both data and insights around the global food waste problem. It also includes an extensive database of companies innovating up and down the food supply chain to combat the country’s food waste issues.

Meanwhile, other notable supporters of the new Action Plan include Kroger, Unilever, Hellmann’s, and many other food companies.

ReFed Launches a $10M Campaign to Reduce Food Waste, Announces New Insights Engine

ReFed today made two big announcements around its continued fight against food loss and waste. The U.S.-based nonprofit has launched a $10 million fundraising campaign to support projects and initiatives that reduce waste in the supply chain. Additionally, ReFed will release an online hub for food waste data and insights next year, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

The campaign is meant to support initiatives across the entire food supply chain that help to reduce food loss and waste. Crown Family Philanthropies, the Fink Family Foundation, The Kroger Co. Zero Hunger | Zero Waste Foundation, the Posner Foundation of Pittsburgh, and Wiancko Charitable Foundation are already involved and have helped to raise $3 million so far. The Robert W. Wilson Charitable Trust has made a matching grant.

Additionally, the campaign is part of an ongoing effort to aid in the goal of the United Nations, the USDA, and the U.S. EPA to reduce food waste by 50 percent by 2030. As we discussed in a recent Spoon Plus report on food waste innovation, many companies and solutions exist in the space, but a great many more are needed in order to “make food waste less possible” for producers, retailers, and consumers alike.

Also supporting the 2030 goal is ReFed’s forthcoming Insights Engine, an online hub for both data and insights around the global food waste problem. Some features will include in-depth analyses on existing food waste solutions, a directory of these existing solutions and companies, a calculator that shows food waste’s impact on both the environment and food insecurity, and financial analysis that will help direct the private and philanthropic capital needed to fund new solutions.

Alongside the Insights Engine, ReFed will release its Roadmap to 2030, which the organization says will serve as its guide for the next decade around the actions it and other players in the food system take to strengthen the fight against food waste.

The U.S. 2030 Food Loss and Waste Reduction Goal was launched back in 2015 by the USDA and the EPA as a companion to the UN’s Target 12.3. Over the five years since, we have seen the number of companies working to fight food waste grow, particularly around waste at consumer-facing levels (grocery, household, etc.). Even so, 40 percent of the world’s food continues to be wasted, resulting in 3.3 billion tons of CO2 equivalent of greenhouse gases and economic losses of about $750 billion annually.

ReFed said today the $10 million campaign will help make a significant reduction in the amount of food being wasted each year. Meanwhile, Insights Engine is expected to be released in early 2021.

Food Waste Friday: Face Shields Made From Excess Food, Cooking Tips That Reduce Waste

As we often discuss at The Spoon, food waste remains a major problem worldwide and is getting bigger each year. The upside, though, is that nowadays, chefs, non-profits, tech companies, consumers, artists, and many more are constantly on the hunt for ways to stop it.

And while much of this week’s headlines were taken up with election news and pandemic updates, there were multiple noteworthy pieces of news around food waste innovation. I’ve rounded a few of them up here to give an idea of the creative lengths people will go to in order to curb the world’s massive food waste problem.

First up: face shields made from food scraps (h/t Waste 360). It was only a matter of time before someone came up with an environmentally friendly face mask for the COVID-19 era. London biotech designer Alice Potts has created 20 bioplastic face shields from a combination of food waste and flowers collected around London. The idea was to create a biodegradable face shield made from sustainable materials, rather than single-use plastics.

Architecture and design magazine Dezeen has photos of the face shields, which use food elements for the material and are dyed with walnut husk, beetroot, purple iris, and other natural elements. The color of the shield depends on the food and flowers from which it was made.

Potts’ masks, which she has dubbed Dance Biodegradable Personal Protective Equipment (DBPPE) Post Covid Facemasks, will be on show at the NGV Triennial at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. Post-show, the face shield design and bioplastic formula will be available as an open-source design.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., four professional chefs are joining forces next week to teach consumers kitchen techniques that can help reduce food waste in the home, according to the Adirondack Almanac.

The ReCook Cafe, which previously took place in person, will be held virtually this coming Tuesday, Nov. 10. It’s a mix of live and pre-recorded programming that features four chefs sharing tips and techniques to help home cooks get more out of their food items, reduce food waste, save money, and hopefully get a tasty meal out of the deal. 

In the U.S., the bulk of food waste happens in our own homes. Our recent Spoon Plus report on food waste outlined some of the companies and tech tools currently available to help consumers fight their own food waste habits. An online workshop that could help folks do that while improving their cooking skills seems like another logical addition to the list.

Best part: it’s free. Register here.

Speaking of food waste at the consumer level: a new study suggests FOMO causes food waste among Gen Z. 

Cook Clever, an EIT Food-funded project, surveyed 18- to 25-year olds and found that peer pressure to be “adventurous” in their food choices deters them from meal planning and eating leftovers. According to the study, this generation wants “new and exciting meals and are very opposed to suggestions of being more resourceful with leftovers.”

The study goes on to say that traditional approaches to food waste (see cooking class) don’t appeal to Gen Z. Dr. Natalie Masento, a lead researcher for the project, said we need more “specialized” efforts specifically geared towards the Gen Z age group will be more effective in fighting food waste.

Food Navigator has more thoughts from Dr. Masento, which are worth reading in full.

 

Apeel Raises $30M to Help Smallholder Farmers Fight Food Waste and Access New Markets

Apeel, best known for its edible produce peel that extends the lifespan of fruits and vegetables, announced today it has raised $30 million in funding from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Temasek, and Astanor Ventures. The new funds will be used to help smallholder farmers both reduce food loss and gain access to higher-value markets for their produce.

For this initiative, Apeel is focused primarily on smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa, Mexico, Southeast Asia, and Central and South America. James Rogers, founder and CEO of Apeel, explained during a chat with me this week that in these regions, farmers face a two-pronged problem when it comes to growing and selling produce: time and access.

There is little in the way of cold chain infrastructre in many of these regions, which makes it virtually impossible to keep produce fresh long enough to go from farm to market without spoilage. This lack of cold chain operations is the main cause of food loss in these parts of the world. 

Apeel’s technology, of course, builds time into the food supply chain via its edible peel that coats fruits and vegetables and to keep them fresher longer. But as Rogers noted, that extended shelf life is only truly valuable to farmers if they have access to markets with buyers, which is the other part of the food waste problem for smallholder farmers. Up to now, a lack of extra time when it comes to produce lifespan has barred farmers from reaching buyers outside of local markets and as a result has limited any economic gain.

Apeel’s new funding will in part go towards alleviating that second hurdle. In addition to providing investment, IFC is also partnering with Apeel to create programs that will plug these smallholder farmers into the Apeel supply chain and give them access to markets in the U.S. and Europe, where the economic opportunities are higher.

By way of example, Rogers explained that a mango grown on a smallholder farm in Kenya might sell for 1 cent in a local setting. If that mango makes it to one of the country’s urban centers, it might sell for $1, bringing greater economic gains for the farmer. Getting the mango to even higher-value markets like the U.S. and Europe only increases the economic gains. 

In a sense, the one couldn’t exist without the other when it comes to the combination of Apeel’s technology and its IFC partnership that gives farmers access to exporters. As Rogers explained to me, the technology — that is, the edible peel that extends shelf life — builds more time into the supply chain, enabling the produce to reach exporters before it goes bad. “The time creates the access,” he said.

In more developed countries like the U.S., Apeel has made a name for itself partnering with major retail chains like Kroger and Walmart. The company also raised $250 million in May of this year.

But this latest fundraise and the IFC partnership is Apeel’s first major step into developing countries that experience food waste and loss in the earlier stages of the food supply chain — though such a move has been on the company’s radar for a long time. Rogers explained that when Apeel started a decade ago, one of its goals was to provide the same supply and demand opportunities for people in parts of the world that don’t have refrigeration and cold chain tech.

“[Food is] only valuable if the underlying infrastructure is there to make it valuable,” he said, adding that part of Apeel’s mission with this new fundraise is to “bring demand from some of the largest markets in the world and be able to make the world much larger for these smaller farmers.”

What’s the Difference Between Food Waste and Food Loss?

With food waste now an important dialogue in the food industry, and a growing area for tech innovation, it’s a good time to lay out the differences between “food waste” and “food loss.”

One third of the world’s food — roughly 1.3 billion tons — goes to waste each year, but across the globe, it is lost or wasted in different ways, at at different points across the food supply chain. That’s where it’s useful to know the difference between “loss” and “waste.”

According to Think.Eat.Save, a partnership between the United Nation’s Environment Program (UNEP) and Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), food loss refers to food that spoils early on in the supply chain, before it ever lands in on grocery store shelves. Think post-harvest, processing, and distribution stages.

Reasons for this food loss can include poor crop harvest, animal deaths, spillage, transportation issues, and insufficient storage. For example, access to reliable and consistent refrigeration is a major issue for many developing countries, and a huge contributor to lost food.

Food waste, on the other hand, refers to food that is ready and edible for consumption but gets discarded before that happens. It usually, though not exclusively, happens further down the supply chain, at consumer-facing stages like restaurants, grocery stores, and in consumers’ homes.

At these consumer-facing levels, food waste can be anything from grocery stores chucking unsold inventory to restaurants throwing out unused inventory and the average person losing items in the back of their home fridge. The bulk of the world’s food waste happens in Europe and North America right now. The good news, as we outlined in a recent Spoon Plus report, is that curbing consumer food waste is a much higher priority topic in 2020 than it was even a few years ago, and tech companies, food businesses, and many others are working to educate more consumers on their food waste habits.

Both food waste and food loss have economic, environmental, and human consequences. And while there is some overlap between the two, food waste and food loss have to be curbed with different solutions — hence the importance of understanding the difference between the two.

For example, introducing smarter fridge appliances or storage systems might help a family in the U.S. curb their food waste and save money, but doing so won’t suddenly improve the disorganized and fragmented food production system in, say, parts of Central Asia. That has to be dealt with by providing more up-to-date equipment and storage techniques and processes, and while the private sector can help, at least some government involvement is needed in order to enact widespread change.

Even so, there is plenty of activity in the private sector from companies fighting both food loss and food waste. In Nigeria, for instance, a company called ColdHubs makes solar-powered “walk-in” cold rooms food producers can use to store their food. Golden Harvest, a business group in Bangladesh, has partnered with USAID to develop the country’s first cold chain network and keep meat, fish, and produce from going bad in the earlier stages of the supply chain.

Over on the food waste side, a number of startups and major corporations in the food industry are working to help North American and European businesses and consumers curb food waste. That includes everything from Samsung and LG’s smart fridges that track food inventory to Winnow’s smart scales that track food waste in commercial kitchens.

Neither food loss nor food waste are simple problems to fix. Technology could — and already does areas — play a central role here in creating more efficient supply chains, equipping stakeholders with better tools, and educating consumers on better ways to manage the way they eat.