IntelliDigest is set to launch the Global Food Loss and Waste tracker. 

The Global Food Loss and Waste Tracker will support the global effort by United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (UNFAO) and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to measure and manage food loss and waste so that we can achieve SDG 2 – Zero Hunger, SGD 12 – Responsible Consumption & Production, and SDG 13 – Climate Action targets by 2030. 

The  Global Food Loss and Waste Tracker will be launched during London Circular Economy Week with the functionality of collecting data on inedible and edible food loss and waste at pre and post farm gate from either smart bins or by manual input from the users. 

With these data, we can track food waste at every stage in the food system from farm to fork, avoiding edible food waste and managing inedible food waste. Additionally, it helps users to understand the monetary value and the avoidable potential greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of edible and inedible food waste.

The Food Loss and Waste Tracker has been developed with support from STFC Food Network, Royal Academy of Engineering and ReLondon. 

“The STFC Food Network+ (SFN) brings together STFC researchers and facilities with research and industry in the agri-food sector in order to help the STFC community to make a meaningful contribution to the food system. We are pleased that the support provided to IntelliDigest through the SFN Scoping Project has led to the development of the Global Food Loss and Waste Tracker. Measuring and monitoring food loss and waste is crucial to understanding the sources and points of occurrence of the waste across the food system so that innovative technologies can be developed to mitigate such waste. We look forward to the great insight the data from the Global Food Waste Tracker will provide in tackling food system challenges holistically.” Dr. Sonal Choudhary – PI, STFC Food Network+ 2.0 (UK, Asia, Africa)

“Tackling the problem of food loss and food waste is now well recognised as part of an integrated approach to achieving sustainable food systems, and this is more so in developing regions like sub-Saharan Africa which suffers both high incidence of food loss as well as high incidence of food insecurity. It is often said that you cannot manage what you do not measure! A strategic goal of the Pan African Society for Agricultural Engineering (PASAE) is to modernize and transform agriculture in Africa for wealth creation and to improve the wellbeing of our people and the planet. The Global FOod Loss and Waste Tracker developed and championed by IntelliDigest, not only presents a novel tool to help quantify the magnitude of food losses and waste, it has the potential to provide real time dataset and information for just-in-time decision making to reduce wastage. We congratulate IntelliDigest and look forward to partnership to roll out the Global Food Loss and Waste Tracker across Africa.” Distinguished Professor Umezuruike Linus Opara, PhD CEng CFS FIAgrE, Founding President – PASAE.  

In Africa, the African Union has committed to reducing Post Harvest Loss by Half by 2025, from its level in 2000. This is part of the Malabo Targets of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP). The problem with this indicator is reliable data to track its progress. Therefore, UNFAO continues to support countries toward the reduction of food loss and waste (FLW) by providing technical support including capacity building to enhance key stakeholder’s understanding of the importance of addressing the FLW reduction challenges. The support provided is aimed at assisting countries to prioritize, plan, design and integrate food loss data collection efforts such as compiling the country Food Loss Index (FLI)  to compare percentage losses over time. In addition, FAO has developed a case study food loss analysis (FLA) methodology that looks at the causes and how to develop solutions to reduce food loss. Joseph Mpagalile – Agricultural Engineer (Sustainable Mechanisation), UNFAO.

Why does it matter?

Globally, one third of the food grown for human consumption is wasted which is over 1.3 billion tonnes. In the UK alone it is estimated that 4.5 million tonnes of food (WRAP, 2020) is wasted a year from households excluding the inedible parts. For most regions, we have little or no available data. 

The potential economic loss from global food waste has been estimated to be over £800 billion with potential environmental impact of over 3.3 GTonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. Infact, Agrifood production contributes to 26% of GHG emission and food produced but not consumed accounts for 8% of total GHG. 

However, it is more challenging that in the midst of so much food waste, over 800 million people are hungry, over 1.9 billion people are under-nourished, either diabetic, obese, etc. leading to 1 in 5 deaths linked to malnutrition. 

Hence, the time to act is now so that we can halve food waste by 2030 and sustainably feed over 9.5 billion people by 2050. 

Measuring and tracking food waste across the food system has become imperative as we can only change what we can measure.  The Global Food Loss and Waste Tracker will provide real time awareness on the environmental and economic impact of food loss and waste via effective measuring and monitoring to consciously take the right action to eliminate food waste, save money and save the environment.