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SPS 2012: Tackling food waste through packaging innovation

For food manufacturers, retailers, restaurants, and consumers, food waste is a pervasive and unavoidable reality. Or is it?

Pw 41573 Foodwaste

At the 2012 Sustainable Packaging Symposium held in Houston in March, Michael Hewett, director of environmental and sustainability programs for Publix Super Markets, Inc., outlined the scope of the food-waste problem and offered examples of how packaging can be used to address the food-waste crisis.

Human impact
“Food insecure” is the terminology used to describe those people who cannot get their nutritional needs met through any traditional means. According to Hewett, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations estimates that there are just over 1 billion food-insecure people in the world; or roughly one of every seven of the world’s 7 million people “don’t have enough food to eat,” he says.

In the U.S., the latest statistics suggest that 48 or 49 million of the country’s 313 million people are food-insecure, 14 million of which are children. “That’s 14 million American kids who may not get three meals a day,” says Hewett. “And by the way, the UN estimates that by 2050, there will be nine billion people in the world. So the problem is not going to get better on its own.”

What are we doing wrong?
In America, where the perception seems to be that food is everywhere, and there is plenty for all, what are we doing wrong? Statistics from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency indicate that 35 million tons, or 70 billion pounds, of food are thrown away every year. Hewett notes however that preliminary findings calculated by The Food Waste Opportunities and Challenges Initiative—a new, cross-industry initiative launched by the Grocery Manufacturers Assn. (GMA), the Food Marketing Institute (FMI), and the National Restaurant Assn. (NRA)—show that number to be too low. “It’s more like 40 million tons, or 80 billion pounds, of food grown for human consumption in the United States each year goes to landfill,” he says.

Another 42 million pounds of food waste are diverted away from landfills, for use as animal feed, or for energy recovery in the form of compost or anaerobic digestion. “Add those numbers together,” says Hewett, “and that’s over 120 billion pounds of food grown for human consumption that people never get to eat.”

Hewett estimates that if there are 50 million people in the U.S. who are food insecure, and we want to feed each one three pounds of food per day, we would need 1,095 pounds of food per person to meet their nutritional needs for one year, or 55 billion pounds of food per year. “Now, do we really need to figure out how to grow more food per acre? Is that the problem here?” asks Hewett. “Or, aren’t we actually growing more than enough food right now in the United States to feed everyone?”

Financial costs
What are the social, economic, and productivity costs of food insecurity in the U.S.? Hewett notes that in 2010, these costs totaled $167.5 billion, plus $94 billion in federal nutrition programs. “That’s a $260 billion-drag on our economy every year, not because we are not growing or producing enough food, but simply because we are throwing away too much food,” he says.

The cost to households can range anywhere from $500 to $2,000 per year, he notes, adding that estimates show that U.S. households pitch 25% of the food they buy, resulting in $115 million of food waste in the U.S. attributable to this segment. “And by the way,” Hewett adds, “throwing away food is not free. We put all the resources into growing it, preparing it, transporting it, retailing it, and bringing it home before we threw it away.”

For food retailers, there are costs associated with food that is not sold, as well as waste removal.

In terms of resources such as water, the losses are also significant. In the U.S., Hewett notes, we use more drinkable, potable water for agriculture than for anything else. “It is estimated that about 25 percent of all the water used in the United States is tied up in food waste,” he adds.

In terms of energy, Hewett says that annual U.S. food waste equals the energy equivalent of 350 million barrels of oil, which is enough to power the whole country for a week.

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