Protect more, waste less

Approximately 20-30% of all fruits and vegetables are lost during post-harvest up – this means from the point of harvest on the farm up to, but not including, the point of retail. When food is lost or wasted (that component attributed to food not consumed through retail, foodservice and consumer parts of the overall chain), all the resources that were used to produce that food – including water, land, energy, labour and capital – also go to waste. This has a cascading effect, increasing instances of drought, deforestation, food insecurity and emissions (www.fao.org, 2019).

To address the challenge of food losses, refrigeration through supply chains and the management of ethylene are critical. With both of these practices, more of what is grown can arrive in the hands of consumers, reducing pressure on food production resources globally.

www.fao.org. (2019). SOFA 2019 – The State of Food and Agriculture in the World. [online] Available at: https://www.fao.org/interactive/state-of-food-agriculture/2019/en/.

Firstly, it’s important to distinguish between food ‘waste’ and food ‘losses’. Food ‘losses’ – when considering the fresh produce industry – occur between post-harvest (i.e., picking) right up to retail. Therefore, if produce goes bad during transport to the destination market – for example, due to port delays, or the ship having to sail a longer distance, both scenarios that are increasingly common today – this is considered a food ‘loss’.

Food ‘waste’ however relates to retail, foodservice and the consumer. So, if cucumbers are rejected by a supermarket for being wonky, or a consumer throws out a punnet of raspberries because they’ve spoiled at home, this is all considered food ‘waste’.

Food loss and waste together (and not just fresh produce) accounts for 6% of total annual global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (Ritchie, 2020). This puts it third on the list of biggest ‘emitters’, after the US and China. As a result, the emissions ’embedded’ in food that is never eaten is hugely significant, and plays a major role in anthropogenic (human-induced) climate change.

Ritchie, H. (2020). Food waste is responsible for 6% of global greenhouse gas emissions. [online] Our World in Data. Available at: https://ourworldindata.org/food-waste-emissions. European Commission

(2023). EDGAR – The Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research. [online] edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu. Available at: https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/report_2023

Functional packaging comes in many different forms, and can be made from many different materials – it all though serves the purpose keeping the produce it contains free from contamination, protecting it from mechanical damage, and reducing dehydration. It can also help the produce look more appealing, make it easier to handle, and give space to share important information for the consumer.

Research by EY Denkstatt, a leading sustainability body, found that cucumbers in plastic packaging had wastage levels 50% lower than unwrapped cucumbers – when considering all the embedded resources from growing, packing, shipping and retailing that cucumber, the wrapped one had much lower embedded CO2 emissions than the unwrapped one, even with the packaging factored in. This illustrates the important role that packaging, and not just plastic packaging, plays in certain situations – fresh produce, especially given its short life and propensity to dehydrate, is one category where packaging is absolutely critical to preserving the life and reducing the potential for food waste.