Blink:

In my last post, I shared details about the waste linked to the fashion industry. Today as a food futurist marketer specializing in the food-away-from-home channel, I am going to share an update on food waste in the business sector I am a stakeholder.

Read On:

Last week I listened to the Food Institute’s podcast on food waste. Their guest was Josh Domingues, founder, and CEO of Flashfood; a Toronto based technology company working to eliminate retail food waste by connecting consumers via their app with discounted food nearing its best-by date. The Flashfood digital marketplace is helping families across North America access nutritious food at affordable prices, while reducing the volume of food, retailers send to landfills. Flashfood is currently partnered with more than 2,000 stores across North America. Interesting food waste eradication solution! However, it remined me of an article I read last month I wanted to write a post about and share with my readership.

It is estimated one-third of all food is lost annually during its production and transport, plus wasted in our homes. In addition, food loss and waste accounts for 24% of the food sector’s greenhouse emissions, approximately 6% of the global total. Addressing the adverse environmental impact of food loss and waste on the surface appears beneficial. Au contraire! A disconcerting new study released by Nature Food based on research conducted at the University of Colorado Boulder revealed a phenomenon labeled the rebound effect. Researchers collected data on how consumers would react to the increases in food supply resulting from solutions to alleviate loss and waste in individual global markets. Their findings indicated as food supply goes up thanks to the reduction in food loss and waste, the research revealed key markets typically responded by decreasing food prices, which increased consumers’ purchasing power/consumption. As a result, consumers buy more food than they ordinarily would have purchased. The study identified this surge in food purchases decreased production less than originally anticipated, offsetting the environmental benefit associated with the utilization of production resources – land usage, fertilizer, water, energy, etc.

Food waste is a major threat to the natural ecology of our planet – greenhouse emissions, the environmental resources needed to produce, package, and transport food. In addition, food waste is a problem as it relates to addressing/offsetting world hunger which has now been further exasperated by our current climate crisis (e.g., extreme weather conditions – drought, flooding, etc.) decimating crop yields. I consider myself an optimistic pragmatist. Thanks to my food futurist research I am constantly learning about the current solutions being implemented to eradicate food waste. Right now, they are all baby steps (micro) which will eventually all add up to make a difference. To me, the macro solution will be a shift in global human behavior – Ubuntu, a topic I will explore in a future post.

 Opinions Welcomed!