How is the World Doing in Halving Food Loss and Waste?

We’re fortunate to be a part of the Friends of Champions of 12.3 - a unique coalition of more than 40 leaders across governments, businesses, and civil societies dedicated to achieving Target 12.3.

One year ago, we became a Friend of Champions 12.3 and were instantly impressed with the leaders and collaborators, and their efforts to eliminate food waste. Back in 2015, the Champions of 12.3 came together with a shared mission to uphold the UN’s 12.3 goal:

“By 2030, halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses.”

The food loss and waste challenge is monumental and it is urgent. One-third of the world’s food is lost or wasted, costing the global economy $940 billion every year and emitting 8% of annual greenhouse gases. At the same time, more than 800 million people do not have enough to eat.

Since we have joined the Friends of Champions of 12.3, we have been working hard to help put an end to worldwide food waste in a few different ways:.

• We launched our food-waste-fighting avocados at Costco and Harps Food Stores in June, which has already proven reducing food waste in retail by 60% (Forbes)
  
• We recently partnered with Kroger in order to help them with their Zero Hunger | Zero Waste initiative -- an initiative which will completely eliminate food waste from Kroger stores by 2025 (MarketWatch) (Kroger)
  
• We take a systems approach and use life-cycle assessment to quantify the environmental benefits of our technology while minimizing the burdens of our own operations. For example, we have found that by treating  asparagus, we can potentially reduce the carbon emissions associated with the supply chain of asparagus before it even reaches the grocery store (interested in learning more about our asparagus solution? Send us a message)

However, not one company can solve the food waste problem, so we also want to spotlight some of the other organizations that are Friends of Champions of 12.3. At a recent event in New York, Champions 12.3 launched its new publication, SDG Target 12.3 on Food Loss and Waste: 2018 Progress Report.

The report spotlights several examples of progress, including:

• Aeon, the largest food retailer in Asia, announced that it will halve food waste across its stores by 2025;

• The Food Waste Atlas, the world’s first freely accessible online tool to bring global food loss and waste data together in one place, launched. This will make it simpler to measure and track food loss and waste in a consistent manner, benchmark performance, identify “hotspots” and support the delivery of SDG 12.3.

• The African Union Commission announced its landmark “Continental Post Harvest Management Strategy” to help all 55 African Union member states implement policies, programs, and investments to address post-harvest food losses at various levels of the food supply chain.
  

Overall, the report finds that momentum is growing and progress in 2018 is promising, but much more needs to be done if this important target is to be met by 2030.

To learn more, check out the full report here. If you want to learn more about how we’re doing our part as a friend of Champions 12.3, don't hesitate to reach out!