Food Waste

To kick off Hunger Action Month, Whole Foods Market announced Nourishing our Neighborhoods, a program created to expand capacity and capability for community-based food rescue organizations to move food from where it’s available to where it’s needed most.

Whole Foods Market is donating the funds to purchase 19 refrigerated vans, and donating two refrigerated catering vans, to community-based food rescue and redistribution programs to transport both perishable and nonperishable food to communities within 18 markets across the United States and Canada. The vans will provide recipient organizations with 20,000 pounds of rescued food per week per vehicle, donated from Whole Foods Market and surrounding grocers and retailers, which equates to 182 million meals provided over the anticipated 10-year lifetime use of each van.

“Nourishing our communities is a priority at Whole Foods Market, especially in these challenging times,” said Rob Twyman, executive vice president of operations at Whole Foods Market. “We’re proud to put forth a food redistribution solution to reduce food waste and provide both perishable and nonperishable nourishing foods to our communities.”

Continuous rain over the past few days has almost destroyed the monsoon crops in various regions of Gujarat. The growers there have not only lost money spent on seeds, fertilisers etc; their efforts for the past two months will literally be wasted as they will have little or no harvest. Continuous…

Many optical sorting machines work by discarding subpar material or foreign matter from a batch of potatoes. But some sorters check products’ quality. “It’s a matter of good, bad, or repeel,” says Sjors Vullings of Marcelissen. “We've had a sorter on the market for almost a year. It can, however, do so…

Coop has been working with the Too Good To Go since 2017. This is an anti-food wastage app. People can use it to buy bags containing perishable goods. These are then collected from their local supermarket. In Denmark, this has already saved 1 million meals from being tossed away. That's equal to about 10,926 flights…

Innovative brand Nudie Snacks has chosen wonky vegetables to market a new product made from fresh produce that would usually have been discarded. The company’s Caulifower Crisps are made from 40% fresh cauliflower grown in Scotland and come in two different flavours – cheese and caramelised onion and…

Germany’s Edeka Group is offering citrus and avocados treated by Apeel Science’s plant-derived technology in more than 11,000 Edeka and Netto stores throughout Germany.

A pilot test this year of Apeel’s technology in about 2,900 Edeka and Netto Marken-Discount stores resulted in a 50% reduction in wasted avocados and greater consumer satisfaction, according to a news release.

The release said Edeka and Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Apeel plan to introduce additional items, subject to approval by European Union authorities.

“With the nationwide launch of Apeel in our stores, we are reaching a new milestone in our goal of reducing food waste and the use of plastic packaging step-by-step,” E Mosa, CEO of Hamburg-based Edeka AG,  said in the release.  “We also support our shoppers to make an active contribution themselves to prevent valuable food in the household from ending up in the garbage bin.”

The pilot with Apeel was conducted in the first half of the year. Avocados from Chile and Peru were treated with Apeel’s plant-based solution. Over a period of twelve weeks, shrink and food loss, sales and turnover values were tracked, according to the release.

When compared with avocados from a control group, Apeel treated avocados had half the waste. Stores with the Apeel program saw a 20% growth in avocado sales, with fewer avocados lost to spoilage and increased customer demand.

A restaurant chain in southern China has issued a public apology for weighing diners before they entered the premises as part of a national campaign to reduce food waste.

Did you ever decide one day to clean the inside of your refrigerator? The first step in tackling this chore is to remove everything and sort through it. In the shuffle some items may have gone past the use by date, others were simply forgotten about in the back of the crisping drawer and have to be discarded. Those in the retail food industry supermarkets know this as shrink.

The aforementioned refrigerator chore gets one thinking about all the produce spoilage that occurs throughout the system — from farms to consumers. In supermarkets, produce departments experience waste and the losses can often reach serious dollar amounts. Every percent of produce shrink loss is a percent less on profit, and when the profit decreases, that’s when management starts snooping around for reasons causing it. Shrink is usually one of the biggest factors.

Management holds produce managers accountable for their gross profit numbers. Whenever the gross profit is deficient, they usually want to know what went into the tank — meaning the shrink loss.

It’s true that most produce shrink exists at store level, but the fact is shrink does not starts and end in store. There are many factors that can contribute to shrink, thus produce managers should not have to take the full brunt of the blame.

There are a number of areas where shrink is initiated before product arrives to a store. This is the “invisible shrink.”

The Canadian Produce Marketing Association and its allied partners across the food system are extremely enthusiastic to have been selected to support the delivery of the Surplus Food Rescue Program developed by the government of Canada.

CPMA is committed to reducing food waste and helping individuals and communities across Canada. Over its 95-year history, CPMA has been supporting charities, community organizations, foodbanks and others through donations and initiatives like theHalf Your Platecampaign to help provide healthy food to Canadians.

The Association is part of a multi-stakeholder network with national and regional representation working to execute this project. This collaboration across industry, charity and indigenous organizations will carry out the distribution of identified surplus food in Canada’s supply chain and match it through CPMA’s partner Second Harvest and FoodRescue.cato support Canada's most vulnerable populations, as well as others who, unfortunately, are now in a position to require emergency food donations.

“Historically, our industry has stepped forward when asked to support our community, and this year we have increased our efforts to support those in need, from our frontline workers to indigenous groups” said Davis Yung, CPMA chair. “I am very pleased that 10% of the product in this program will be targeting northern communities to ensure all Canadians are supported in these unique times.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping eats a Polish apples as he greets the arrival of the first China Railway Express train that rolled into the Polish capital from China ending a 13-day trip from Chengdu, capital of the central Sichuan province on June 20, 2016 in Warsaw. Chinese President Xi Jinping was in Warsaw to boost China's trade and investment with Poland, the European Union's largest eastern economy. / AFP / JANEK SKARZYNSKI (Photo credit should read JANEK SKARZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

500Foods shared this story from CBC | Canada News.

Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau announced details today of a $50-million program that will redirect surplus perishable food products to vulnerable people during the pandemic.

The Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, was at Nutri Group Head office, in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, today to announce details of the first-ever federal government program that will provide millions of pounds of quality, nutritious, surplus food to Canada’s most vulnerable populations.

The Surplus Food Rescue Program is a $50 million initiative which will help to support Canada’s food system, food processors, and food producers, and distributors to help ensure food availability for all Canadians.

With global supply chains being threatened by a combination of extreme climate events and transport restrictions, it is increasingly important to tackle the global problem of wasted food. Most of this waste occurs in our homes. People buy food, presumably with the intention of eating it, but end up…

The Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, will visit the Nutri Group Head office and the Nutri-Oeuf egg plant to announce the partnerships between producer groups and not-for-profits that will redirect surplus food to those in need.

After the Covid-19 crisis, consumers are paying more attention to food safety, making higher demands on fruit and vegetable processing enterprises. Cleaning is an important step in possessing fresh-cut fruits and vegetables. Efficient and convenient cleaning equipment not only helps to improve a…

New Zealand’s first large-scale food waste-to-bioenergy facility gets underway at Reporoa, in the central North Island. Following the blessing of the land by Ngati Tahu-Ngati Whaoa, construction will begin on the new anaerobic digestion facility which is owned by Ecogas – a joint venture between Pioneer…

George Ahearn, who grew up in the farming town of Othello, Washington, co-founded EastWest Food Rescue after learning that Covid-19 was costing local farmers so much business that they were willing to destroy their crops.

Food loss and waste (FLW) currently causes an estimated $1 trillion in economic losses globally each year. This constitutes a major humanitarian crisis in addition to an economic one, leading the United Nations to set a goal of reducing global FLW by 50% by 2030. A new report by Lux Research, “Preserving…

The amount of plastic wasted has soared during the current lockdown, as Scots believe products are a lot safer to eat when packaged. A new Populus poll found that two in three Scots are concerned about an increase in plastic waste during lockdown. Some people seem to believe that produce like fruit and…

A Queensland based food innovation company has produced a new health product, made mostly from discarded fruit and vegetables, which is being released. Natural Evolution has created an Australian first 3 in 1 Multifibre, called GUTHEALTH+, a synbiotic blend of prebiotics and probiotics, which supports,…

Nature's Pride, in collaboration with Bizerba Netherlands, has taken a huge step towards reducing waste. By installing an LDI PAC8, a label dispenser from Bizerba - with customer-specific adaptations - Nature's Pride has the absolute first for this solution across Europe. Waste reductionAs a supplier of 230…

Mariska Dreschler (GreenTech) and Ted Duijvestijn (CEO Duijvestijn Tomatoes), discuss indoor growing and the following topics: Why circularity is important and how Duijvestijn incorporates this How can you reuse excess and waste? Geothermal energy, is it too early? Data and digitisation in the greenhouse…

Hazel Technologies Inc., developer of new USDA-funded technologies to protect quality in the produce supply chain and fight food waste, announced a new partnership with PureFresh Sales, grower and marketer of premium California fresh fruit since 1970. The partnership focuses on the use of Hazel Tech®…

Re-Nuble has cracked the code on how to help soilless farms grow their net income by going 100% closed loop, through the utilization of food waste. Over the past 5 years, the company has developed technologies that unlock water soluble nitrates from plant-based food waste streams, producing…

The Surplus Food Rescue Program is a $50 million initiative which will help to support Canada’s food system, food processors, and food producers, and distributors to help ensure food availability for all Canadians.

A group of college students in B.C.'s Okanagan region have developed a social enterprise project that creates nutritious snacks for families in need by using food bound for landfills. 

Netto is the largest supermarket chain in Denmark. They've now partnered with the anti-food wastage app, Too Good To Go. From 23 June, 519 Netto branches will offer bags of left-over products. These will be sold on the Too Good To Go app. This is Too Good To Go's biggest collaboration in Denmark. About…

According to a new survey, Tasmanian fruit and vegetable farmers are collectively losing $145 million in profit resulting from 1,140 tons of produce being thrown away on farms each year. The Tasmanian Food Cluster survey set out to determine the level of on-farm and processing losses in the horticultural…

About a third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally each year, according to a report by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations. In the EU, this amount is about 20% of the total food produced. Wasting food not only raises ethical and economic concerns,…