Transforming the food ecosystem with technology

Partnering across the food value chain to minimize waste through people, policy, and technology

Food waste is a global problem that has environmental, financial, and societal impacts. A recent panel discussion at Capgemini’s 2024 Business to Planet Connect event got to the root of how to build a sustainable future, from farm to table. The session, led by Gina Kirby, a director in Microsoft’s Cloud for Sustainability team, explored how technology and collaboration are transforming the food ecosystem.

Alexandria Coari, a Vice-President at ReFED, a non-profit which fights food loss, noted that one-third of all food produced globally is wasted every year. That amounts to $1 trillion in global economic value and eight percent of greenhouse gas emissions, caused by methane gas released from food in landfills.
While the problem is significant, it is solvable with the help of technology.

Using data to get a true picture of waste

Food waste occurs at every stage of the food value chain, from the farm, to transport of food, to retailers, to the consumer. As food moves through the value chain, it is damaged, lost, or cannot be used due to changes in temperature. Data analysis can help highlight and address these problems.

However, it is difficult to track food waste data in places like homes, restaurants, and hotels. Chefs have long used pen and paper or spreadsheets to manually track food waste, but that information is often inaccurate and the process is time consuming.
David Jackson, Director of Marketing & Public Affairs for waste-analysis firm Winnow, explained its technology automates data collection across the value chain. When restaurants and other businesses understand precisely where they are wasting food and the associated cost, they can make operational changes to reduce it.
The company has captured data from approximately 2,700 locations all over the world and uses computer vision to see food as it’s thrown away, assess the weight of that material, and give it an associated cost.
“We can pinpoint somewhere between five and 15 percent of the food that comes into the kitchen as it ends up in the bin,” Jackson said. When teams in a kitchen have those insights, they can understand where they are making too much food, which is the primary reason food is wasted in commercial kitchens. Equipped with the right data, these teams can cut food waste by about half in one year, he said.
Data can also help supermarkets make sales decisions based on when food is nearing expiration, and restaurants can better assess when food must be cooked or what temperatures it should be stored at to keep it from perishing.
Data sets become more comprehensive when they include collective inputs from across the value chain. The more comprehensive the data, the greater the opportunity to make changes across multiple touchpoints.

Turning problems into opportunities

Any business operating in the food space can look at this monumental problem and see it as an obstacle. Yet sustainability leaders view it as an opportunity. Reducing food waste could provide a revenue source for businesses. It could also help feed the one in eight Americans who are food insecure today.
Some organizations are banding together to collect and share data to inform next-step actions. The Pacific Coast Food Waste Commitment, a public-private partnership on the West Coast of the US and Canada, connects retailers, manufacturers, growers, distributors, and local jurisdictions. Each entity reports data, which is anonymized and reported back so that organizations can track their progress and benchmark against peers.
Coari at ReFED noted that the coalition found a large amount of food was unsold and going to landfill. By using data to track these trends and take measures to reduce waste, in four years, US grocery retailers on the West Coast were able to:

• Reduce unsold food by 25 percent
• Increase food donations by 20 percent
• Increase food going to composting by 25 percent
• Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent.

Getting specific with data is important to making better decisions. Capgemini Sustainability Lead Jordan Friedman said, “The statistics become more and more shocking the better data you get.” Waste is happening across the food value chain, and data helps to reveal the striking picture.

A cookbook for change

Food waste is everyone’s problem. Consumers contribute to food waste as do corporations. So, who should be responsible for fixing it? Capgemini research shows that 61 percent of consumers expect corporations to play a role in addressing food waste, but brands also want to influence consumer behavior.
“Technology is part of the solution, but at the end of the day, it’s people that can actually deliver the result,” Jackson said. Consumer education and behavioral changes will play a significant role in reducing food waste. People want to take part in transformation, whether at home or at work.
People can learn how to change their behaviors at home or when dining out. Human behavior in hospitality – such as buffets – plays a significant role in waste creation. Campaigns like The Consumer Goods Forum’s #toogoodtowaste help educate consumers on how to address the problem.
Businesses can inspire change by making people part of the solution. Bob’s Red Mill ran a competition requesting ideas from the workforce on how they might reduce waste every day. The organization received 700 ideas. Among them was tightening the screws on bags that held flour, as they would become loose over the day and flour would fall to the floor. Addressing this small issue helped reduce the amount of wasted flour by 70 percent.
Every business can pursue those small changes that can make a big difference in addressing food waste.

Investing in the future

One critical lever for reducing food waste is funding to support transformative projects. Friedman commented that Capgemini has been tracking the percentage of total revenue that organizations are investing in sustainability projects. She said, “Smaller companies are investing a larger percentage of their revenue than larger companies.” Recent Capgemini research found that organizations with $1–$5 billion in revenue increased investment this year, from 2.9 percent of total revenue in 2023 to 3.02 percent. Larger organizations invest on average 0.36 percent of total revenue.

There are funding gaps to fill, and a portion of that money can come from corporations along the food value chain. Policy will also be a strong contributor to change.
ReFED and partners also launched the Zero Food Waste Coalition, which includes more than 250 organizations across all 50 of the United States. The coalition advocates for standardized food labeling and expiration information.
Policies that standardize food labels may help the large percentage of people who get confused by the information on packages.
Zach Shaben, Public Affairs Manager at Too Good To Go for the US and Canada, said, “We are advocating for standardizing that across the products so people, so consumers, can understand those phrases.”

Reducing food waste across the value chain

The food waste problem has grown over time – but it is an addressable issue. No one growing up was taught they should throw away food. Farmers don’t grow food to see it end up in a landfill. Businesses don’t intentionally waste food and accept the cost of that waste. With behavior change across consumers and corporations, coupled with the right funding and policies, we can minimize food waste for a better planet.