Food Loss and Waste
Supporting organisations to understand, measure, report and reduce food waste across the value chain and impact wider food system transformation
Insights
Food loss and waste is as much a social issue as it is an environmental responsibility.
Currently, around one-third of all food produced is lost or wasted while there are around 785 million people living in hunger.
The UN estimates that food loss and waste generates up to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. To put the scale of this into context, this is almost five times more than the aviation sector. Addressing and reducing the greenhouse gas emissions from food waste is therefore not only essential but also a fundamental step in any food company’s decarbonisation strategy and to tackling the challenges of climate change.
By closing the loop in food production and re-establishing the value in food itself, we can reduce the demand for food to be grown, in turn lessening the environmental footprint and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This is becoming ever important in the context of a growing global population set to hit 9 billion by 2050. Food is grown to be eaten and it is important that as much food as possible is used for this purpose.
What are the benefits of focusing on food loss and waste for your business?
- 1 billion tonnes (or 912 trillion calories) of food is wasted annually.
- This food could feed the 11% of people that live in hunger.
- Addressing food waste could help create more equity in the food system.
- Responsible management of food waste can help protect brand and reputational risk.
- A strategy to tackle food waste can ladder up to broader corporate ESG goals and commitments.
- Complying with voluntary reporting commitments ahead of any mandatory requirements:
- Reducing food waste has a direct impact on emissions, carbon, water, and land use footprint.
- Food Waste reduction lessens the burden on our food system to grow new food, protecting ecosystems and biodiversity from further degradation.
- Food waste management helps improve supply chain resilience and continuity.
- Irresponsible food waste management is a $850 billion cost to the food system.
- Effective food waste management can lead to anywhere between 3 – 6% COGS savings.
- WRAP have estimated that there is around $1.6k saving for every tonne of food waste saved.
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How we help clients
Anthesis has extensive end-to-end knowledge and experience helping clients to understand, measure, report and reduce food waste across the value chain. We work with global food retailers, manufacturers, growers, investment communities and industry bodies to advance food loss and waste reductions in line with decarbonisation and social impact commitments.
Our food loss and waste team offer deep subject knowledge and expertise applied to your business environment and working within the context of global food loss and waste agreements and protocols with the goal of having a positive impact on wider food system transformation.
We can assist your business to grow sustainably by:
- Understanding where you are on your food loss and waste journey and how this ladders up to broader sustainability and climate strategies.
- Establishing education and awareness programs and training around the importance of, and ways to tackle food loss and waste in your business.
- Assistance in determining food waste & surplus definitions, and data collection methodologies.
- Food loss and waste reporting in accordance with local geographic, industry and within voluntary frameworks and agreements.
- External stakeholder engagement strategy and implementation to collect, measure and report food waste upstream in supply chains.
- Food waste hotspot analysis and waste reduction strategy development including roadmaps, intervention piloting and implementation.
- Exploring circular economy i.e. Upcycled food propositions and innovative methods to close the loop in food.
- Food re-distribution partnership development as a method to tackle food surplus.
- Development of consumer campaigns to influence positive behaviour towards food waste and reframe attitudes to food and waste.
Our Food Loss and Waste Experts
We are the world’s leading science-based advisory, purpose-driven agency and digitally-empowered activator. And always welcome inquiries and partnerships to drive positive change together.
