Food waste has been described as the sleeping giant of sustainability issues in Australia. Moving the dial will require a multi-pronged approach.
A land mass bigger than the state of Victoria, 25.73 million hectares, is used every year to grow food that is wasted – enough to fill the Melbourne Cricket Ground 10 times to the brim.
The economic cost is $36.6 billion a year, according to the Food Innovation Australia Annual Report 2020-21. Then there’s the environmental impact of the energy, fuel and water used to grow food that may not be consumed, and the greenhouse gases emitted from food rotting in landfill. At the same time, one in six adults and 1.2 million children regularly goes hungry in Australia.
It doesn’t add up, says Melissa Smith, Horticulture Lead and Technical Account Manager with End Food Waste Australia.
“Everything that goes into creating food is wasted when we waste food,” she says. “We need to stop waste happening in the first place.”
Melissa is part of a team taking on the challenge of ending food waste and food insecurity in Australia, starting with halving food waste by 2030.
A global issue
The fight against food waste is a global one. Food loss and waste generates eight to 10 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and is widely cited by The United Nations Environment Programme as almost five times that of the aviator sector.
Goal 12 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a call to action to end poverty and protect the planet, is to halve global per capita food waste by 2030. Aligning with that goal, in 2017 Australia developed the National Food Waste Strategy to provide a framework to support action toward food waste reduction.
End Food Waste Australia is leading the delivery of the strategy, providing a link between government, businesses, industry bodies retailers and consumers. Since its inception it has established the Australian Food Pact and sector action plans to guide change. It’s also led Australia’s most comprehensive research in consumer food waste behaviours.
“Tackling food waste is the single most powerful thing people can do in their everyday lives that will have a positive effect on climate change.”
“We’re about attacking the system at multiple points,” Melissa says.
Fruitful plans
Early in 2023, End Food Waste Australia, working with the Australian Bananas Growers’ Council, Melons Australia and the horticulture industry, released a first-of-its-kind national plan, pinpointing priority action to reduce fruit and vegetable waste.
Melissa says the horticulture industry has the biggest footprint in food waste in Australia. It’s important to understand why, where and what can be done.
The Horticulture Sector Action Plan provides a national view of the root cause of horticulture food waste and identifies the most impactful action to reduce it.
Nine key action areas identified in the plan aim to reduce fresh produce food waste that occurs at every stage of the food supply chain – on farm, during transportation and manufacturing, and in retail stores.
Interventions include improving food waste data and measurement, exploring whole crop purchasing arrangements, reviewing product specifications, improving logistics to get fresh produce to food rescue charities, investing in and growing value-add opportunities and Australia’s upcycled foods market – such as freeze-dried fruits and vegetable powders – along with many more.
The objective is to prevent food from becoming waste and keeping it in the human food supply chain. That includes repurposing food, donating it to charity food groups or turning it into stock feed.
“Anything that keeps food waste out of landfill is great, but the most value is keeping it in the human food supply chain,” Melissa says.
“When you’re growing food for humans, the input that goes into that, the care taken, and emissions created are far higher than if you’re creating a compostable product or a fuel source so let’s try and use it for what it was intended.”
Leading the pact
Melissa says food waste can be solved, but it is too big a challenge for any one, or any single sector, to tackle alone.
A substantial amount of food is diverted from landfill through four major food recovery services – Fareshare, Foodbank, OzHarvest and SecondBite, according to a fact sheet by the Department of the Environment and Energy.
Grocery retailers Coles and Woolworths have partnered with food recovery organisations. These partnerships mean that retailers can meet their food waste reduction goals while the charities are able to alleviate poverty and improve food security.
Industry is also exploring and experimenting with different ways to reduce food waste.
Since launching in 2021, 32 businesses have signed on to the Australian Food Pact, a voluntary initiative that focuses on preventing waste, promoting food reuse and donation through tailored action plans and site visits.
“We help them figure out what needs to happen and find new ways to manage their waste,” Melissa says. “Can we prevent food waste in the first place? Can we use it in another process? Can we donate it?
“We have signatories who have reduced food waste from 500 kilograms per product run to 100 kilograms. Others we have helped build relationships with food charities to divert more than 1000 kilograms of fresh produce in the first month alone, creating meals for people in need, instead of going to landfill.
“In the first two years the Pact signatories have donated the equivalent 190 million meals to help feed people in need. That’s exciting.”
Behavioural change
Melissa says the Pact is gaining traction and will continue to grow as businesses recognise the importance of their social licence and the need to meet stricter sustainable supply codes.
Food waste, she says, is bad for social licence. Studies have shown that 91 per cent of consumers are willing to buy from brands/retailers that disclose information on their food waste and will spend more with companies that support ending food waste. But it’s not just food businesses and industry End Food Waste Australia is working with. Later in 2024 the group will release a behaviour change campaign aimed at consumers.
The campaign is designed to help people understand how they can reduce food waste in their own homes.
“There’s been some amazing research looking at what goes on in the household,” Melissa says. “We’ve put a lot of work into understanding what groups of community are most likely to waste, what they waste, when and why. All the knowledge is there to target the right information at the right people.
“The campaign will raise the profile of food waste and put more pressure on industry to be acting, and show that they’re acting, on food waste.”
While End Food Waste Australia’s journey is relatively short, it is drawing on the international experience of WRAP (The Waste and Resources Action Programme), a British registered charity working around the globe to tackle the causes of climate crisis and give the planet a sustainable future.
During the past 15 years, WRAP has seen a 23 per cent reduction of food waste in the UK. Retailers have reached, and increased, their 50 per cent food waste reduction target. That success is one of the areas Melissa will look at more closely when she travels to the UK, Europe and the United States as part of a Churchill Fellowship later this year.
She hopes to gain insights into on-farm food waste production activities such as increasing industry adoption and working with other parts of the supply chain.
“Coming from a farming background, one of the reasons I love working in food waste reduction is because it’s tackling a sustainability issue where there are no negatives if you act.
“It’s proven that when you reduce food waste you improve your profit.
Reducing food waste is great for people and planet. It’s a pure topic to be working on.”
