Packaging and food waste are central environmental concerns for food and drink buyers.
To create more sustainable eating practices that will benefit the planet, reducing food loss and food waste is a crucial element that the government, producers and retailers, and consumers will have to tackle, as, currently, millions of tonnes of food waste are thrown away each year – across the globe, both domestic and industrial.
In this article, we will highlight insights on food waste reduction, consumer attitudes towards food waste, and innovation to fight food waste now, and in the future.
What is the UK doing to reduce food waste?
Having found that 4.7 million tonnes of household food waste is thrown away each year in the UK, this innovative use of technology provides a food waste reduction action plan for the 63% of UK adults wanting more ideas on how to reduce food waste while cooking at home.
Technology Will Help Develop New Food Waste Reduction Methods
Technological advancements, AI particularly, will increasingly help elevate sustainability standards, for example, by optimising ingredient use and avoiding food waste.
The Dutch inventory management and waste tracking tool Orbisk already shows promising results in the foodservice industry. It uses AI to scan the foods that get thrown away in a kitchen, helping to optimise ordering, ingredient use, and even portion sizes to minimise waste. This enhanced process is doing the groundwork for foodservice operators to implement successful food waste reduction strategies.
The Dutch company Orbisk has developed an AI tool to help foodservice operators optimise their food waste reduction strategies. Source: orbisk.com
The adoption of AI will also benefit food retailers. Some supermarkets in Germany, such as Rewe and TeGut, have already trialled dynamic pricing systems in an attempt to align with the federal government’s plan to halve the amount of food waste. Rewe has implemented AI shopping experiences at its Cologne store including dynamic pricing for perishable goods to incentivise the purchase of commonly wasted produce, such as vegetables or bread.
Hellmann‘s helps combat consumer food waste with AI
Germany Sustainability in Food and DrinkAlready, 42% of Germans have used or are interested in using generative AI.
What technology is used to combat food waste?
In April 2024 Hellmann‘s launched its ‘Meal Reveal’ tool, designed to help consumers reduce food waste. Leveraging AI technology, the tool invites users to scan the food in their fridge; it then identifies the ingredients through image recognition and suggests suitable recipes based on the quantities of ingredients available, therefore encouraging users to make the most of what’s already in their fridge.
Scrapsational: Food Upcycling and Repurposing Can Drive Our Food Waste Reduction Plan
Change the narrative around imperfect food to change food waste consumer behaviour
Mintel’s market research has recorded a 13% increase in food waste produced by UK households alone between 2018 and 2021. Too Good To Go has launched an alternative labelling called ‘Look-Smell-Taste’ to target food waste in households, which compels consumers to trust their senses over traditional expiry labels. M&S has said goodbye to ‘best before’ labels from more than 300 fruit and vegetable items in an effort to reduce food waste. Similarly, almost 50% of Germans try to improve their environmental impact by reducing food waste at home and wonky vegetable offerings rank among the top 4 of sustainability claims that UK consumers find most appealing in order to reduce their contribution to food waste.
The challenge for Too Good To Go and similar operators is that imperfect products are often perceived to be of lesser quality. However, retailers can change the narrative on ‘ugly produce’ by explaining optical defects, for example, apples with wonky shapes, and make the most of blitzed formats to use up unsold goods.
Too Good To Go offers consumers an easy way to fight food waste and save perfectly good produce from being thrown away. Source: toogoodtogo.com
Explaining the taste, textural, and nutritional benefits of ugly products will also help change consumer perception. Brands should stress the benefits of overripe, misshapen, or unpeeled produce. M&S‘ 25p Extra-Ripe Bananas may be squishy but are sweeter in taste and, therefore, perfect for banana bread. Belviva‘s ‘Uglies Fries’ come unpeeled and in inconsistent sizes, providing textural variation and extra fibre. However, only 1% of 2024’s food launches have made upcycling claims – such as flavoured flour – offering whitespace for brands to explore.
Lower prices can entice consumers to buy imperfect products
- SIRPLUS, which operates four grocery supermarkets in Berlin, buys wonky fruit and vegetables that would be difficult to sell at major supermarkets and near-shelf-life foods from producers and wholesalers and sells them at low prices. Similarly in Japan, there are clearance sales of imperfect products at discount stores.
- German discounter Lidl sells €3 “rescue bags” of fruit and vegetables.
- Perfekto is a Mexican start-up that focuses on rescuing fruits and vegetables that, despite being in good condition, are often discarded by producers because they are difficult to sell. They allow consumers to source products at a lower cost through subscriptions based on users’ set preferences. The box is then shipped to the consumer’s home with as little packaging as possible.
Perfekto, a Mexican company, sells rescued fruits and vegetables directly to consumers via subscription boxes. Source: instagram.com/perfektomx
Circularity sparks innovation to fight food waste
Upcycled food products that make use of food waste are slowly gaining traction. For example, Japanese fast food chain Yoshinoya has launched products promoted as being upcycled, such as bread made with powder from wonky onions. Italian start-up Packtin has developed a process to upcycle fruit and vegetable by-products from food manufacturing into flavoured flour by drying out manufacturers’ by-products such as orange peels at low temperatures and then using a patented process to turn them into flour. This food waste reduction method ensures that the flour retains all the raw materials’ natural flavours and nutritional benefits while minimising energy use.
While German company SIRPLUS’ focus lies on selling imperfect products, they also manufacture private brands from the imperfect produce they buy. This initiative aims to rescue more food by converting perishables marked for disposal into foods that last longer, such as jam and almond butter, to extend their lifespan.
But, circularity in food waste reduction initiatives goes beyond edible products: What is the future of food waste?
- MyGug, an Irish food waste disposal start-up, has found a way to convert food waste into renewable energy that can power kitchens. Their smallest biodigester can take up to 5.5 kilograms of food waste per day and turn it into up to 3 hours of daily cooking time and 11 litres of fertiliser.
MyGug’s biodigester is made to eliminate 90% of food waste. Source: mygug.eu
- Japanese convenience store chains are adopting AI technology to decide what discounts should be applied to perishable products in order to reduce waste, thus making food waste reduction strategies even more efficient.
Meal Kits Can Be Positioned as Food Waste Reduction Initiatives
UK Food and Drink and At-Home SocialisingReady-to-cook restaurant-style foods through meal kits appeal to 29% of Brits, as they provide shortcuts to home-cooking meals.
While price and health continue to rank as the most important considerations when shopping for food and drinks in Canada, Mintel’s research on consumer attitudes towards food waste highlights the importance of the environment too. As recorded in Mintel’s Canada Delivery Services and Meal Kits Report many users of meal kit subscription boxes state the benefits are that they provide the right portions for meals, therefore limiting food waste and the buying of too many ingredients, which will expire before they can be used.
Locally sourced products and recyclable packaging are the environmental initiatives that resonate the most with Canadians. Meal Kit subscription boxes can make their offerings even more attractive to consumers seeking to reduce their carbon footprint by stocking their boxes with ingredients sourced locally to the users and applying minimal packaging/recyclable packaging wherever possible.
The German meal subscription box wyldr advertises a combination of different food waste reduction strategies in one product:
- Personalised recipes that are conveniently delivered to users’ homes, thereby reducing the amount of ingredients that go to waste unused
- Use of regional and seasonal products, as well as imperfect fruits and vegetables
- Circular delivery systems to reduce the carbon footprint caused by delivery
German recipe subscription box brand wyldr combines several food waste reduction methods in one product. Source: wyldr-bio.de
However, the hurdle that remains for meal kit subscription box operators, is the price. The convenience of not having to come up with recipes, buying your own groceries, and being as sustainable as possible while you do it often comes with a heftier price tag compared to more convenient forms of shopping for food and drink.
Brands will have to focus on messaging to justify higher prices and convince buyers that their products’ benefits outweigh the price tag’s inconvenience.
Government Policies and Retail Initiatives Are an Important Pillar of Food Waste Reduction Strategies
Governmental regulations provide legislative support for food waste reduction methods
Although environmental awareness is growing among consumers and personal responsibility is a strong driver to act more sustainably, governments must provide the foundation for food waste reduction action plans to succeed. The US, France, and other markets are imposing many regulations on businesses, including demands for leftover food products to be donated.
- In 2016, France became the first to introduce a law to curb food loss, which requires supermarkets larger than 400 square metres to stop disposing of leftover food products and instead donate them to food banks and charities, or otherwise face a fine. As a result, food product donations are said to have increased by over 10% following the enactment of this law (client access only).
- Italy also passed a law to reduce food loss in 2016 which involved rewarding companies with tax incentives for waste reduction milestones (contrasting with France’s more punitive approach).
- China has a long-standing hospitality-rooted tradition in which hosts serve more food than their guests can eat, with the expectation that diners will leave food on their plates at the end of the meal. However, fines are now being introduced for such practices, as the catering industry in China’s urban regions is responsible for about 18 million tonnes of food waste each year (client access only).
Retailers are uniting for food waste initiatives
An initiative, called ‘Pakt gegen Lebensmittelverschwendung’ (‘pact against food waste’ in English), was drawn up by the German Ministry of Food and Agriculture in July 2023 and has now been signed by 14 retail, wholesale, and meal kit delivery companies, including Aldi, HelloFresh, Lidl, and others.
The signatories commit to donating edible food to food banks and using inedible food as animal feed.
Looking Ahead With Mintel
As we’ve seen, attitudes toward food waste are changing. It is moving up consumers’ priority lists.
To battle its threat to the environment, it will be key to have the government, businesses, and consumers working together towards the common goal of reducing food loss and waste.
Primary innovations and food waste consumer behaviour to take away from this article:
- Leverage Technological Advancement: Inventory systems powered by AI and designed to work with ingredients already in your fridge.
- Change the Discourse Surrounding Imperfect Products: Retailers have the power to shift the narrative and thus perceptions of wonky vegetable and imperfect produce.
- Work Towards a Circular Economy: Food waste can be transformed into more durable products (such as flavoured flour) or into reusable energy.
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