Eliminate Food Losses

Abstract

Food ‘mass’ is lost during all stages of the value chain. Biological threats attack crops in the field, at harvest and post-harvest. Another set of biological threats, mainly insects, mammals and fungi spoil food during pre-consumption or pre-processing storage. Poor storage (e.g., lack of or inadequate cold chain) and transport systems mean that the hard won food items never reaches a market. Further along the food chain, imperfect food may be dumped, or over trimmed during the wholesale or processing stages. And an incredible amount is simply purchased and not consumed—at the domestic level and in the food preparation industry. The elimination of food loss or ‘not losing what we grow and produce’ is an area of research and development that has received comparatively little attention by public and private sector institutions, compared to ‘producing more food’. It does not seem to matter that 30 % of the output of the global investment in this area is wasted. That is enough food to feed two billion people. There are solutions available all along the food chain—the stimulus to apply them is missing.