The Fight Against Food Waste

Delivery

This report comes in PPT.

Key Findings

Food waste implications go further beyond the surface of losing resources

The food waste challenge exerts a multi-layered burden over the global food system. Imprecise demand forecast at the retail level or overstocking on a household level can create a series of ripple effects that subsequently lead to negative environmental impact, such as rising temperatures across countries across the globe.

Mitigating food waste earlier in the value chain allows for less environmental and economic burden

Food waste gets more expensive the further down the value chain it travels, both economically and environmentally. The loss at the consumer end bears much more weight on the economy and the environment than at the harvest stage. Therefore, the need to change the consumer relationship with food is pressing not only because of the amount of food wasted but because of the environmental and economic ramifications it has on the whole food system.

Households rank as the number one source of food waste, but revamping the consumer relationship to food starts earlier

Examining retailers’ contribution to food waste on a global level shows a relatively low impact, however a deeper dive reveals that retailers are the catalyst for much of the food waste happening at household level. In order to change consumers’ behaviour towards food, a multi-layered approach should be followed, where all stakeholders play an active role including producers, manufacturers and most importantly legislators.

Food system reform across the value chain will pave the way for a more sustainable future

In order to mitigate food waste, we need to explore the only two options available currently: either enhance the efficiencies of our current food system or explore the possibility of adopting a new economy model, ie circular economy.