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Brands and retailers find ways to reduce food waste

From supermarkets selling imperfect ‘wonky’ vegetables to drinks brands using upcycled barley for plant-based milks, retailers and manufacturers alike are finding ways to reduce food waste across the value chain.

Despite efforts by grocery retailers and manufacturers, food waste continues to blight the food industry with over 88 million tonnes of food thrown away annually in Europe.

A societal, environmental, and business priority

An article by global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company has shed more light on this topic, making the case that tackling food loss is a “societal, environmental, and business priority.”

Reducing food loss is immensely achievable, its authors state encouragingly, suggesting that united efforts amongst all participants in the value chain could cut food loss by 50 to 70%.

Two-thirds of the food that would otherwise be lost could be redirected to human consumption; the remaining one-third would go to alternative uses, such as bio-based materials or animal feed, they add.

Some efforts are already being made to add value to such produce. Online companies such as Imperfect Foods and Misfits Market sell imperfect produce that cannot be sold to grocery stores while traditional brick-and-mortar supermarkets Lidl and Morrisons have rolled out “wonky vegetable” campaigns in their supermarkets in the UK, selling imperfect produce.

In 2021, AB InBev's Anheuser-Busch revealed it would invest $100 million to expand Evergrain, its subsidiary’s production capabilities to recycle waste barley and repurpose it for use in food and beverages.

Shifting food loss thinking

“Taking food loss and turning it into value could be beneficial, which is what AB InBev is doing by supporting their product creation of taking barley by products and turning them into a protein and fibre ingredient,” said Turner Wyatt, CEO at Upcycled Food Association, in a recent post.

“Food loss is not due to one person’s choices and it’s certainly not one person’s responsibility to solve, but that we must all come together and shift the way we think about food loss, food waste, and the opportunities to address them.”

So, what can grocery retailers and manufacturers do to reduce food loss? Well, firstly it involves a shift in mindset to think of food loss as an operational inefficiency that affects the business as a whole.

This mindset could then evolve beyond satisfying sustainability targets and towards opportunities that benefit the business supply chain by improving both the top and bottom lines.

To put that into practice is the next step, with companies requiring a new communicative approach with stakeholders in the food ecosystem and consigning business-as-usual practices as those of yesteryear.

Enormous potential to add value to sidestreams

According to the authors of McKinsey’s report, AB InBev’s investment is a great example of turning food loss into value.

By turning its barley by-products into a protein and fibre ingredient, a dairy-free protein drink and a protein ingredient was produced and made commercially available by the drinks firm.

“There is enormous potential to sell more of the food that farmers produce,” says the report. “Food that would otherwise be lost can be turned into new products and thriving businesses. Consider dedicating R&D resources to developing new revenue streams from nonmarketable food.”