The festivities around the holiday season are all about spending time with family and friends while enjoying plenty of food! And while we all do that, as businesses and individuals, it is important to be reminded that food wastage has been a long-term worldwide problem. As per the UNEP (United Nations Environment Program) Food Waste Index Report 2021, 17% of all food available at consumer level (11% in households, 5% in food service and 2% in retail) was wasted in 2019.

What is food waste?

Food waste can be raw or cooked food materials and includes food loss before, during or after meal preparation in the household, as well as food discarded in the process of manufacturing, distribution, retail & food service activities.

Why Food Waste Management is Critical?

Food waste is not a problem that exists in silo but is indicative and affective of pollution, economic problems, inflation, the list can go on. For example, 1% of India’s annual GDP is depleted in the form of food wastage. Another way to look at food waste as a problem with a definite ripple effect is, when food either produced, processed or packaged, gets wasted, all the resources that were employed in producing, processing or packaging of that food are also wasted by implication. Furthermore, resources required to responsibly dispose the said waste also is a further demand on more resources.

With all economies currently chasing to reduce their GHG emissions and setting constant, achievable targets, the matter of food waste must be highlighted as an area to be considered, analysed and remedied, as required.

Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) states that 1/3rd of the global food production is wasted annually, amounting to ~EUR 700 billion. In this light, it is interesting to note that UN Hunger Report states that the world produces enough food to feed everybody on the planet and yet, 811 million go hungry every day.

Effectively managing food waste in the framework of a circular economy can be a game changer. The potential for contribution in generation of energy, biofuels (REPURPOSE); production of agricultural productivity enhancers (RECYCLE); and the primarily obvious challenge of REDUCE food waste is the way to close the loop and establish a sound circular economy structure. In the retail and food services sector, some of the factors leading to food wastage include - supply chain inefficiencies, stock management, storage of perishable materials, logistics, marketing strategies (eg: two for one deals).

The data points to be further considered in closing the loop are industry and process specific, thus, handing almost an equal responsibility of establishing a circular economy framework on all those involved from the government to the manufacturers and on to the end consumer.

Commitments and Efforts

Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12.3 is to halve food waste per person at the retail and consumer levels by 2030 and to reduce food losses along the food production and supply chains. In this direction, the UNEP published its very first Food Waste Index Report in 2021. While the report sheds light on Food Waste as an essential problem to be brought in perspective, it also raises some essential questions.

1. The conceptual confusion between Food Waste and Food Loss affect how we gather, view and analyse data, the world over

2. In which sectors or parts of supply chains is the most waste being created?

3. What types of food have the largest impact?

It goes on to mention that answers to these questions can be achieved in the near future and will be hugely beneficial to governments, businesses, and related organisations to prioritise their efforts.

Similarly, to achieve SDG 12.3, the EU Platform on Food Losses and Food Waste (FLW) was established in 2016 bringing together relevant actors from EU institutions, experts from the EU countries, international organisations and more. As part of the ‘Farm to Fork strategy, European Commission has proposed legally binding targets to reduce food waste across the EU by the end of 2023. In India, ‘The Compulsory Food Waste Production Bill’ was introduced in 2018, which envisages to set up a Committee for Food Waste Reduction which shall publish a Food Waste Reduction Strategy to strategically reduce food wastage.

Europe-India Collaboration to Reduce Food Waste

Ranked second in the Global Food Waste Index 2021, just after China, India can benefit from the policies, practices and technology solutions from European countries to address the challenge of food waste. Currently, the food technology industry in India is dominated and almost limited by food delivery players and there is an exigency of brining innovations focused on reduction, redistribution and recycling of food waste. In 2022, the food technology Industry in Europe grew in multi-fold with more than 50% of the money going to start-ups located in the ‘European FoodTech Hub’ region which includes Germany, the UK, France, the Netherlands and the Nordics. (Report by DigitalFoodLab).

Some of the strategic interventions inspired from EU Waste Framework Directive which can be adopted in India are:

• Political commitments on prevention of food waste - involving measurement of food waste at national and sub-national level categorised by food type and targets to reduce that waste

• National-level campaigns to enhance knowledge and awareness on ways to reduce food wastage among consumers, retailers and manufacturers as well as policy makers

• Increased investment in research and innovation for tech-based solutions encouraging a circular food economy

• Promote participatory project models engaging value chain actors of food waste management – food donation, reprocessing in non-food products, innovations in food packaging etc.

• Integrate use of technology in the implementation model of all these strategic interventions