The effort to minimize food waste along its value chain has become more important than ever in light of rising inflation. As the prices sore sky-high, it is important to make use of every bit and bite. Disruptions in the food supply chains and volatility of the global economy has resulted in the rapid rise of global food prices. The Agricultural Commodity Price Index rose by approximately 30% reporting the highest ever increase within a year since Jan 2020 (World Food Programme, 2021).  

And yet, 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted each year amounting to roughly US$ 680 billion in industrialized countries and US$ 310 billion in developing countries. (Worldwide Food Waste, n.d.). Let’s take a closer look.  

How much is wasted and where? 

What is alarming to know is that, despite the issues around the unfulfilled demand, food supply generates a significant amount of waste prior to and at consumption. Roughly one third of the food produced for human consumption goes as waste along the supply chain (Food Loss and Food Waste, n.d.).  the studies say, where, 

• Nearly 14% of total global food production is lost from production up to (and not including) the retail level.   (Global Food Losses, 2016) 

• While, 17% of total global food production ends up as waste from households, food services and retail. (Tom Quested et al., 2021). 

Food production as well as waste treatment costs to the environment 

Food waste does not just lead to more hunger, it costs to the environment.  

There is already a significant environmental footprint associated with food when it reaches the point of consumption, as nutrients and energy has already been consumed to grow, harvest, refine and process them. Reducing food waste therefore contributes to reduce these impacts. 

On the other hand, the way that the Australian bin system operates now, organic food waste and other mixed waste are collected together. This leads to food waste getting entombed in an anerobic landfill or when it degrades,  it produces a worse environmental impact than most of the inert material, due to the rapid release of methane (Levis & Barlaz, 2011). 

Role of commercial food preparers 

The contribution to total food waste by the hospitality sector globally is nearly 12% (Dhir et al., 2020). In the US alone 93% of the food waste generated (18.3 million tons) comes from restaurants and similar food services, where more than half (52%) of this waste ends up in landfills (Wasted Food Report, 2018). 

Looking at how to address avoiding and reducing food waste in preparation in the hospitality sector, is critical, as the food wasted has travelled so far  by then and is ready for consumption. 

Sustainable food preparation goes hand in hand with sustainable food choices and these two together change the way food is demanded, prepared and consumed along the value chain associated with it. 

What can food preparers do? 

As in most great cuisines, a few little changes to the recipe and ingredients will add a whole new flavour to the meal.  Here are a few changes we can make to make our food preparation and consumption more sustainable.  

1. Know your requirement – and manage the demand

Demand monitoring and tracking and using it forecasting patterns and trends will enable planning out purchases accordingly. Forecasts based on historic sales data and future considerations such as major events and festivals will not only improve utilization but will definitely save costs. 

2. Know the food’s footprint – and make correct choices 

The inconvenient but the ultimate truth about the environmental footprint of food products come from life cycle assessments (LCA). LCA studies show the difference in food products as well as the impact on where it can be sourced from. Addressing the dilemma whether locally sourced food make a difference at all, the facts say that the impact due to selecting food that have a higher footprint is much greater than shifting to local sourcing.   

As an example, red meats like beef produce 60kg of GHG equivalent (GHG-e) per 1 kg of product, whereas for poultry meat it is 6 kg GHG-e and for fruits/vegetables it is <1 kg GHG-e.

“Shifting your choice from red meat and dairy products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a vegetable-based diet achieves more GHG reduction than buying all locally, even if you do it one day a week.” (Weber & Matthews, 2008).

             3. Know you menu – and optimize the recipe 

There are creative ways to look at conserving food, at the menu design itself, without having to alter the verity of dishes on offer. Providing value to the food parts that are typically unused with a creative menu, have seasonal menus designed to absorb excess supply of a certain type of food, offering variety in the menu by providing half-half choices to discourage consumption of certain items are some of those. Seeking out new opportunities to cross-utilize the different parts of the same ingredient on multiple menu items or designing “food sink” dishes that can absorb leftovers of the last meal, are few of the other ways.  

4. Know how packaging matters – and avoid and reduce when possible 

Single-use packaging is to be avoided at all cost despite it being made of plastic or any other material. While plastic persists in the environment for some time and have received the biggest attention as a polluting material, other materials such as paper are not better as it has a significant environmental footprint associated with production Purchasing packaging with recycled material , if these are certified as safe for use, will encourage purposeful design of packaging to include recycled products. 

However, the best packaging for the environment is the one that is not used.  

If you can encourage customers to bring their own reusable packaging and offer benefits for those that follow through such as discounts or special offers, that not only does the best for the environment, but will also entice customers to return. 

5. Know what to do with what’s left – and have plans to divert for use, recover,  or recycle 

Even with all the steps taken to reduce the food waste, some amount of food will be left over or thrown away. But, that does not mean that it needs to end up in a landfill. The options below can be pre-identified while you make plans to minimize waste.  

Food donation 

Food that was prepared but not sold can be donated to food banks and soup kitchens, and partnering with charity organization will help distribute meals to those in need.   

Onsite or Centralized Composting  

Onsite composting can be a good option if you have the adequate area and means to perform it. This will lead to reduced or negligible hauling and disposal costs for the waste produced. With an initial investment and an appropriate area requiring for this, the next best would be to divert it to a commercial facility. 

Diverting to other places such as animal farms may be an option to explore if such is available in the locality. 

Continual Improvement 

The goal to achieve zero waste is not just a vision – It is a practical reality if the commitment for continuous improvement remains. The proposition for such improvements is not purely environmental, rather it creates value for businesses. A review of 1,200 business sites across 700 companies in 17 countries found that nearly every site evaluated achieved a positive return, with half seeing a 14-fold or greater return on investment(Craig Hanson & Peter Mitchell, 2017).  

At testing times such as this, however invisible it may seem, humanity directly or indirectly competes for resources, and food is one such basic need. Being the privileged to have access to food, there is never a better time to make the best use out of what has travelled in a global value chain to feed us, so that it conserves the produce for many others.  

The post Inflation Is Rising, Why Reducing Food Waste Is More Important Than Ever appeared first on Dr Mayuri Wijayasundara.

Women’s day came and went on the 8th of March with promises of change and cracking that ambiguous glass ceiling and yet we keep wondering what visible and impactful changes will occur in our workplaces for the rest of the year.

Pondering this question, I thought it would be a good idea to share my own thoughts on a topic that we often talk about – female leadership.

There is so much attention on why women at the top of the ladder at lead corporates, politics, or other organisations are so few and far between.  In the year 2020-21 less than 20% of CEOs in Australia were women though the workforce comprises a 50-50 split between men and women (Australia’s Gender Equality Scorecard | WGEA, n.d.). This is when research shows that between the ages of 25 to 34, 46% of women have obtained bachelor’s degrees while only 36% of men have done the same(Parker, 2021).​

Clearly there is glaring disparity between the workforce composition and the same for high-level positions. Does this mean that women leave the workforce early, or do they simply get stagnated in lower and mid-levels while their male counterparts rise faster and more consistently?

As a woman who has both been in a corporate and an academic career, and then started my own professional practice, I have worked with a diverse group of people both male and female. Over the years I have been lucky enough to learn some standout lessons that has helped me and inspired me to reach further than I thought, and I want to share some with you.

“The road to becoming a leader is long… it’s best to prepare a backpack.”

Here are three key elements I would add to your backpack when you get prepared to be a female leader

1. Purposeful, direction and strategy may matter more than the speed

The old saying “leaders are born not made,” has waxed and waned over the years but I cannot deny that having a strategy to guide yourself along the advancement ladder gives a competitive edge.

When I was a fresh graduate from university, I was fortunate enough to be mentored by a few corporate leaders, who shared their lessons in advancement and helped me map out a mental blueprint for my development. Through our conversations, I saw the possibilities in front of me, and one grain of wisdom was the way they thought about success and advancement.

To my surprise, they did not look at success or advancement in a career ladder taking a sequential, linear approach. They approached it like a game with an intense level of result orientation and purposeful action towards reaching a goal.

A lot of us (women) may argue that a career is not a competition and contributing to the community and enjoying what we are doing matters a lot more to us than the constant and intense pursuit of a goal. One thing we need to be aware of though is that our biological making does not help us much there. Men as hunter-gatherers were biologically made for releasing adrenaline and pursuing targets strategically, whereas women typically nurtured offspring and collectively enjoyed the community and protected the base as carer/collectors. There is beauty in both ways and cultivating and sharing a few treats among the sexes will help us reach our full potential.

When we struggle to balance life and work as carers and givers and then add advancement to this precariously balanced portfolio, we need to be aware that we are in a working environment with strategic, result-oriented counterparts who purposefully work towards advancement. We may not be able to “do it all now” or “have it all” with other demands of life but having a clear map and directions of how to get there mapped in our heads, constantly motivating ourselves and reviewing avenues and alternatives consistently to explore them would definitely help.

2. To get the trophy, you first need to join the competition…

A reason that often comes up when explaining why it takes women longer to advance in the workplace is that many do not believe they are ready. It is common to say that “Women put their hand up for advancement when they are 100% (or more) ready, whereas men do that when they are 50%.”

Some research suggests that extreme prudence, combined with humility and integrity, which leads us to downplay our own position and to communicate conservatively does not work well for our advancement and hence rises to leadership (Gourguechon, n.d.).

Whether the barrier is fear of rejection or failure or expectation of perfectionism, what I now tell myself is that “the first pre-requisite to qualifying is to enter the playground” – so submitting to leadership believing that you are enough and as many, you could figure out the rest along the way is so important.

3. You only get what you ask for

Negotiation – is not something I was comfortable with in the early parts of my career. As a loyal employee, I hated when I had to ask for something explicitly after visibly accomplishing something for the organization, and even more when I had to justify that.

On the contrary, I was truly amazed by how my husband managed a workplace negotiation when he received a competitive job offer. It was a straightforward conversation to talk about his value in the market and the cost for the organization if they lost him and ask their position about increasing his offer. Research also suggests that men are four times more likely than women to ask for a raise—and when women do ask, we typically request 30% less than men do (Women Are Still Not Asking for Pay Rises. Here’s Why, 2018).

If we take the emotion out of the conversation, it finally ends up with the fact that we have a situation, where our manager or the organization is not our opponent, but the counterpart. On one hand, we seek advancement, knowing that we are worthy of it. On the other, the organization likes to have us engaged and motivated. The situation is what we both want to be resolved amicably and gainfully.

Being explicit about what we want and reaching the table of negotiation often (directly or indirectly) and with the correct mindset is definitely an attribute that I would recommend that we put into our backpacks. Leaving the table with more information but nothing else is never a worse outcome than not arriving there at all!

Support along the way matters too.

While more workplaces need to believe in and be ready to welcome female leaders, a lot of us working women have a role to play in saturating the top layers with more of us. While the backpack may need more and more things the higher you go up, the support, rest and accommodation received along the way with an open heart definitely will encourage more and more to take the journey to leadership!

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