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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

food waste reduction

Spoon Plus: The Consumer Food Waste Innovation Report

Nowadays, governments, grocery retailers, industries like agriculture and grocery, tech companies, and many others are working to fight food waste at both the local and international level. In the developed world, at least, much of that focus over the last 12 months has been on the consumer kitchen, which is responsible for by far the most food waste in those regions.

This report will examine why so much food is wasted in the consumer kitchen, what new technologies and processes can be leveraged to fight that waste, and the companies working to change consumers’ relationship to both food and waste.

Report highlights include:

  • One-third of the world’s food goes to waste annually. In the U.S. and Europe, the majority of that waste happens downstream, at consumer-facing businesses and in the home.

  • Food waste at home is a three-part problem that stems from a lack of awareness about waste, inadequate information and skill sets around home cooking, and the convenience economy driving consumer behavior.

  • Grocery store shopping, current recipe formats, inconsistent date labels, and a lack of smart storage solutions for grocery purchases and restaurant leftovers are the main drivers of at-home food waste.

  • The refrigerator itself may be one of the single biggest contributors to food waste. Moving forward, appliance-makers will need to consider overhauling the appliance’s entire design to help consumers fight food waste.

  • Solutions for fighting food waste will come from a range of different players. For tech companies, areas of focus will include more smart appliances and more tech-enabled storage systems as well as meal-planning and meal-sharing apps.

Companies profiled in this report include LG, Samsung, Vitamix, Smarter, Ovie, Bluapple, Mimica, Blakbear, Silo, Mealhero, MealBoard, Kitche, No Waste, Ends & Stems, and Olio.

Introduction: The Size of the World’s Food Waste Problem

In 2012, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) released the first edition of its now-famous report, “Wasted, How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food From Farm to Fork to Landfill.” That report proved to be a groundbreaking look at the inefficiencies in the U.S. food system that lead to massive amounts of food waste from the farm all the way into the average person’s kitchen. 

The report also proved to one of the biggest catalysts for change in recent years. Since its publication, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced federal targets to cut food waste by 50 percent by 2030 — the first goal of its kind in the U.S. Similarly, the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 12.3 seeks to “halve global food waste at retail and consumer levels, as well as to reduce food loss during production and supply.” As NRDC noted in the second edition of “Wasted,” published in 2017, food businesses have made commitments to reduce waste, and 74 percent of consumers polled say fighting food waste is important to them. Most recently, the Consumer Goods Forum launched its Food Waste Coalition that aims, in part, to support SDG 12.3 by focusing on consumer-facing areas of food waste like home and retail. And these are just as sampling of the countless efforts happening on both international and local levels in the war on food waste.

Even so, the oft-cited figure, that one-third of the world’s food supply goes to waste, is as relevant now as it was nearly a decade ago when NRDC first published its report.

In 2020, food waste is a multibillion-dollar problem with environmental, economic, and human costs that grow more urgent as the world advances towards a 10-billion-person population. The United Nations’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) estimates food waste’s global carbon footprint to be 3.3 billion tons of CO2 equivalent of greenhouse gases, and that economic losses of this food waste total $750 billion annually. The United Kingdom’s Food Waste Recycling Action Plan (WRAP) notes that keeping food scraps out of landfills would be the equivalent of removing 20 percent of cars in Britain from the roads. Meanwhile, over in the U.S., rescuing just 15 percent of the food we waste could feed 25 million Americans each year, or well over half of the 40 million Americans facing food insecurity.  

Worldwide, different regions waste food in different ways. UN estimates show that per capita waste by consumers in Europe and North America totals to 95-115 kg/year. That number drops significantly, to 6-11 kg/year, in sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeastern Asia. Overall, 40 percent of losses occur at post-harvest and processing levels in developing countries. Not so in developed nations, where over 40 percent of food waste occurs at retail and consumer levels.

Given the enormous amounts of waste occurring at the consumer level in Europe and North America, it makes sense that recent efforts towards fighting food waste now go towards understanding how and why food gets wasted downstream, at grocery stores, restaurants, and, most importantly, within consumers’ own homes.

The full report is available to subscribers of Spoon Plus. To find out more about Spoon Plus, click here. Use discount code NEWMEMBER to get 15% off an annual or monthly subscription. 

This Alternative Sweetener Is Made From Upcycled Apples and Pears

Overconsumption of sugar is responsible for illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes and some cancers, a problem that’s hard to avoid because American food is full of the stuff. Many people and companies lean on alternatives to avoid sugar, but while research has proven that consumption of aspartame, sucralose and others is safe, many people have concerns about them. Stevia is another sugar alternative that’s made from leaves, but its odd aftertaste disqualifies it for use in many products.

This conundrum in the multi-billion-dollar sweetener industry presents an opportunity for Fooditive, which hopes to provide another option that is not only natural, but also reduces food waste. The Netherlands-based startup’s sweetener is made through a fermentation process that extracts fructose from apples and pears sourced from Dutch farmers that have brown spots or off colors and can’t be sold in stores, Fast Company reports. The company, founded by food scientist Moayad Abushokhedim, has also developed carrot waste into a preserving agent for soups, sauces and bakery items, as well as thickening agents made from banana skins and emulsifiers from potato extracts.

The company is following a B2B model and will distribute the sweetener to food and beverage companies across the Netherlands. There’s no word on when it will go on sale to the general public, although the company’s website says online ordering will be coming soon. Fooditive said it has plans to expand to Sweden, the U.K. and Abushokhedim’s native Jordan. 

While Fooditive’s sweetener is novel, using food and food scraps that would otherwise be discarded is part of a growing trend of so-called upcycled foods. Other companies with this model include Barnana, which turns misshapen and over ripened bananas into snacks, ReGrained, a maker of bars made from spent grain leftover from brewing beer, and Sir Kensington, a vegan mayo maker that uses chickpea liquid.

Aside from introducing alternatives, companies are also introducing ways to “improve” sugar so we don’t need to consume too much of it. There’s DouxMatok, which aims to make the sugar we already consume hit our tongues more efficiently, and Nutrition Innovation, a technology company using near-infrared scanning to better refine sugar.

Startups are approaching the issue of humanity’s dangerous sugar addiction from multiple angles, so thankfully there are plenty of sweet solutions emerging.

The Food Tech Shöw: Umlauts, Delivery Drones & Sweetgeen 3.0

After a mini-break following the Smart Kitchen Summit, The Spoon editors were back this week to record a brand new editor roundtable edition of the Food Tech Show.

Jenn Marston, Chris Albrecht, Catherine Lamb and myself jumped back on the mic to discuss the following stories:

As always, enjoy the podcast and please leave a review if you enjoy what you hear.

You can listen to the Food Tech Show by on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, by downloading direct to your device or just by clicking play below.

Apeel Sciences Wants to Save Your Produce, One Edible Peel at a Time

Apeel Sciences founder and CEO James Rogers was more concerned with paint than produce when he first came up with the idea for the company.

At the time, Rogers was getting his PhD in Materials Sciences, developing a solar paint that could harvest energy. But after hearing a story on the radio about global hunger, he found himself wondering why such a thing existed if an abundance of food was grown every year.

The culprit, as Rogers would discover, wasn’t a lack of food; it was food spoilage. Thus Apeel Sciences was born, and Rogers and his team set to work developing a plant-based peel for produce that, once applied, extends the shelf life of fruits and vegetables. The product, called Apeel, acts as a barrier that retains water inside the produce longer and regulates how fast oxygen gets in.

Stepping away from paint for a moment, Rogers used his background in materials sciences to address the problem, applying the same concepts metallurgists used when creating a coating to protect steel from the elements. Since produce, like iron, degrades when exposed to environmental conditions for a long period of time, couldn’t we use the same solution—a barrier—to slow down the decay?

In trying to answer that question, Rogers discovered that everything needed to create such a barrier already exists—in the food itself. Out of that revelation, (and a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation), Apeel was born.

To create that barrier for produce, Apeel basically takes parts of plants left behind on farms (e.g., tomato rinds, seeds and pulps) and extracts particular lipids from them. Those lipids are then combined in specific ratios, which vary depending on the produce, to create the ideal protective barrier for each fruit and vegetable.

From there, the company sends its specialized Apeel to farmers and suppliers in the form a lightweight powder, which they combine with water and apply to the produce. “Once applied, [Apeel] leaves behind an imperceptible amount of edible plant material on the surface of the fruit that naturally slows down water loss and oxidation—the factors that cause fresh food to spoil,” says Michelle Masek, Head of Marketing for Apeel.

Of course, the product’s main appeal (please kill me for that) is that consumers will have food that stays fresher longer, and isn’t coated in wax for protection against the elements. For example, Masek says Apeel can, “at minimum,” double the shelf life of avocados. Considering that (at least up north) most avocados are already shriveling by the time they hit the major chain grocery stores, that’s welcome news.

But it’s not just consumers who win with the longer shelf life. “It benefits every member of the fresh food supply chain by minimizing waste and extending the transportability of the produce [for] farmers, shippers and retailers,” says Masek. In other words, less waste and longer transport time windows are a win for everyone involved in getting food from the farm to the store.

Right now, Apeel Sciences works with everyone from smallholder farmers and local organic growers to large food brands. It’s currently only focused on fresh produce. Masek also assures me the company is scaling as we speak: “We’re ramped up in a new 105k square-foot facility in Goleta, California where, as an example of scale, we can make enough product to service the global avocado supply.”

Whether the company does end up serving the global supply of avocados isn’t clear. By some accounts, the produce industry didn’t exactly welcome Apeel with open arms. That said, few industries have a uniformly positive reaction when a new player comes in with a “disruptive” idea. And with $40 million in funding so far, plus support from the Gates foundation, Apeel may very well have a real shot at replacing that wax that covers the produce at your local grocer.