Food waste reduction is essential

Recently the European Commission has set a goal of halving food waste by 2020, and Europe’s food supply chain has committed to this.

The industry has launched a new publication “Every Crumb Counts”, which is a Joint Declaration on the 50% food waste reduction.

This Declaration adopts the “life cycle approach”, which means that manufacturers in Europe will now have to consider, and take responsible for, not only the development and manufacturing phases of a product lifecycle, but also what happens after the consumer has finished with the product.

These businesses will now be required to develop products and use packaging that reduces food and general waste, and therefore minimising the Carbon Footprint.

At the same time, research done by RMIT University’s Centre for Design has clearly identified exactly where food waste occurs in our product lifecycle in Australia;

•  households – 2,700,000 tonnes
•  food services – 661,000 tonnes
•  food manufacturing – 312,000 tonnes
•  retailing – 179,000 tonnes
•  wholesale distribution – 83,000 tonnes

There is good news from the study, apparently at this point nearly 90 percent of the food waste from manufacturing is recovered or repurposed.

Dr Karli Verghese, RMIT Senior Research Fellow, said; “Food security is an emerging challenge for both policy makers and companies in the fresh and manufactured food supply chains, however no significant research had previously been conducted into the role that packaging plays in minimising food waste in Australia. Packaging actually plays a critical role in protecting fresh produce and processed food in transit, in storage, at point of sale and prior to consumption. In doing so it helps deliver a wide range of functions while reducing food waste.”

The research finally confirms that packaging contributes significantly to waste and therefore the Life Cycle Approach is essential in Australia as well.

This article was written by Rachelle Williams, The Green Food Safety Coach