To reduce the massive amount of waste sent to landfills, businesses throughout the food supply chain are striving to not only prevent but significantly reduce waste. Grower-shippers, processors, distributors, retailers, and restauranteurs are discovering new ways to recycle, compost, and repurpose foods, including aging or imperfect fruits and vegetables, and fresh-cut leftovers.
While such initiatives are not new, environmentally-conscious shoppers continue to pressure retailers and foodservice operators to hold their suppliers accountable and to reduce their own carbon footprints. This includes more responsible food management and better packaging, such as more recyclable containers and the use of less material to decrease weight and waste.
Part of the equation is labeling, and federal labeling requirements are undergoing a facelift. In December, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued updated information and guidance on “Best if Used By” food labels designed to reduce waste by food manufacturers and retailers. The use of “Sell-by” and “Use-by” phrases has confused shoppers and caused otherwise wholesome and safe food to be prematurely disposed. Bottom line: everyone would rather feed people than landfills.
Sustainability Audits There are many ways businesses on both the buy and sell sides can reduce waste. Some undergo sustainability audits, which not only measure success but provide feedback on waste reduction efforts. These audits are becoming a prerequisite to doing business with some national retail chains, like Walmart and Whole Foods, or consolidated buyers such as Pro*Act, says Nikki Rodoni, founder and chief executive officer of Salinas, CA-based Measure to Improve.
While these measures aren’t being dictated or mandated across the board yet, Rodoni says many buyers are moving in this direction. “They’re guiding buyer decisions based on companies’ sustainability efforts, which is ultimately what consumers want,” she explains, adding consumers “want to know about not only quality and safety, but if there’s some sort of environmental integrity.”
In the marketplace, such efforts are appreciated but not necessarily profitable, as few buyers are willing to pay a premium for sustainably-produced items. “For a number of years, we’ve seen customers wanting to see you’re doing something,” explains Laura Hamman, sustainability manager of Gills Onions, LLC in Oxnard, CA. However, she says, “They don’t necessarily want to pay for it.”
Houweling’s Tomatoes recently underwent a sustainability index focusing on food waste requested by one of its retail customers. The intensive process involved examining expected production and sales to arrive at a crop efficiency score for a single year-round crop. The results showed the Camarillo, CA-based greenhouse grower-shipper managed waste well, says David Bell, Houweling’s chief marketing officer.
Houweling’s index was at more than 90 percent in terms of sustainability. A percentage of the balance was lost to overpacking (the additional weight put in cartons to account for evaporative weight loss during transit). Of the small percentage related to waste, a quarter was due to inefficiency while another quarter was culled product, with the remainder donated or composted.
To reduce the massive amount of waste sent to landfills, businesses throughout the food supply chain are striving to not only prevent but significantly reduce waste. Grower-shippers, processors, distributors, retailers, and restauranteurs are discovering new ways to recycle, compost, and repurpose foods, including aging or imperfect fruits and vegetables, and fresh-cut leftovers.
While such initiatives are not new, environmentally-conscious shoppers continue to pressure retailers and foodservice operators to hold their suppliers accountable and to reduce their own carbon footprints. This includes more responsible food management and better packaging, such as more recyclable containers and the use of less material to decrease weight and waste.
Part of the equation is labeling, and federal labeling requirements are undergoing a facelift. In December, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued updated information and guidance on “Best if Used By” food labels designed to reduce waste by food manufacturers and retailers. The use of “Sell-by” and “Use-by” phrases has confused shoppers and caused otherwise wholesome and safe food to be prematurely disposed. Bottom line: everyone would rather feed people than landfills.
Sustainability Audits There are many ways businesses on both the buy and sell sides can reduce waste. Some undergo sustainability audits, which not only measure success but provide feedback on waste reduction efforts. These audits are becoming a prerequisite to doing business with some national retail chains, like Walmart and Whole Foods, or consolidated buyers such as Pro*Act, says Nikki Rodoni, founder and chief executive officer of Salinas, CA-based Measure to Improve.
While these measures aren’t being dictated or mandated across the board yet, Rodoni says many buyers are moving in this direction. “They’re guiding buyer decisions based on companies’ sustainability efforts, which is ultimately what consumers want,” she explains, adding consumers “want to know about not only quality and safety, but if there’s some sort of environmental integrity.”
In the marketplace, such efforts are appreciated but not necessarily profitable, as few buyers are willing to pay a premium for sustainably-produced items. “For a number of years, we’ve seen customers wanting to see you’re doing something,” explains Laura Hamman, sustainability manager of Gills Onions, LLC in Oxnard, CA. However, she says, “They don’t necessarily want to pay for it.”
Houweling’s Tomatoes recently underwent a sustainability index focusing on food waste requested by one of its retail customers. The intensive process involved examining expected production and sales to arrive at a crop efficiency score for a single year-round crop. The results showed the Camarillo, CA-based greenhouse grower-shipper managed waste well, says David Bell, Houweling’s chief marketing officer.
Houweling’s index was at more than 90 percent in terms of sustainability. A percentage of the balance was lost to overpacking (the additional weight put in cartons to account for evaporative weight loss during transit). Of the small percentage related to waste, a quarter was due to inefficiency while another quarter was culled product, with the remainder donated or composted.
The examination helped the company understand the type, destination, and quantity of ‘unproductive product’ and demonstrated how it could better manage loss. “It validated our sense of where we were,” Bell explains. “We were very pleased to see our gut instinct lined up with what the hard facts showed.”
Technology Lends a Hand New technologies have proven critical for many cost-effective solutions. Wholesum Family Farms, Inc. plans to showcase its efforts at the Nogales Sustainability Expo in May. Because sustainability programs are expensive for single companies, Hannah La Luzerne, Wholesum’s sustainability manager, believes grower-shippers in the Nogales industry should work together to share processes and broaden the conversation about improving waste prevention.
Wholesum has found a mix of old and new technology can work well. The company has high-tech sensor-activated automatic doors but also uses an old cardboard baler instead of paying someone else to recycle its cardboard waste. “This technology is fairly low-tech and certainly not new, but it has totally transformed how we see recycling,” enthuses La Luzerne. Instead of paying to haul away cardboard, the baler turns “what was once an expensive waste stream into a revenue source that can be put toward other sustainability projects,” she explains. “It’s also a flexible solution that allows us to manage fluctuations in waste cardboard volume without spending more to recycle when volume is high or paying for capacity we don’t need when it is lower.”
Organically Grown Company sponsored its first sustainability summit back in 2005. It began tracking data that year and since then the Eugene, OR-based grower and distributor has achieved 93 to 96 percent waste elimination according to Kimberlee Chambers, supply chain and sustainability program manager. She attributes the high score to monthly meetings of a ‘zero waste’ committee, which is comprised of workers from throughout the company to help in the effort.
Crop Waste Disposal One commodity with a high level of waste is onions. Growers and processors must deal with discarding mountains of peel waste, not to mention unmarketable onions for one reason or another. To reduce the unsaleable items, Gills Onions uses highly selective seed varieties and specialized fertilizing programs, which has helped reduce culling on the packing line. In turn, Hamman explains, this decreases shrink and disposal costs, and improves profits.
To deal with onion waste, Gills has been using an $11-million energy recovery system (put into operation in 2009) that converts discarded peels and other leftovers into renewable energy and cattle feed. Although it was a gamble to install the new waste-to-energy system, Hamman believes innovation always involves risk.
“At the end of the day, if this project cost double, we wouldn’t have been able to do it even if there was a willingness to go above and beyond and be [environmentally] responsible,” she comments. Hamman believes the true payoff, however, will come from creating less waste prior to processing. “As we develop better machines to sort, peel, and focus on avoiding generating waste to begin with—we’ll see huge results.”
Improved Packaging In addition to field measures and pack house technology to reduce waste, grower-shippers are also introducing new packaging. Ready Pac Produce, Inc. introduced a new clamshell designed to reduce landfill volume by 130,000 pounds last year. Up to 95 percent of the vegetable and plant waste of the Irwindale, CA fresh-cut processor is composted or used for animal feed. The company also cut its landfill waste in half by recycling plastic liners and wax boxes, eliminating eight landfill loads per week at its Florence, NJ plant.
Alan Hilowitz, Ready Pac’s director of corporate communications, says the company continues to examine its processing, packaging, and shipping practices to reduce spoilage and waste in retail and consumer use, and has been looking to its suppliers for new ideas. The reasoning is pretty simple: “We rely on the Earth for what we do; it would be counterintuitive and counterproductive for any company that focuses on plant- or animal-based products to not be sustainable in some shape or form.”
Organically Grown helps growers introduce new packaging to the marketplace and seeks feedback from vendors, distributors, and retailers. “We have many accounts that come to us and tell us their customers want less packaging,” comments Chambers. “People are much more aware that every piece of product they bring home from the store has to go somewhere. We can’t just wait to see where the push is coming from; we’re always actively looking to try new things.”
Improved Shipping & Distribution Channels How pallets are configured and fit in a trailer can also reduce shipping costs and ultimately waste. Viva Tierra Organic, Inc. was ahead of the curve: it redesigned and reshaped cartons and reinforcements back in 2011, increasing its pallet stack from 56 boxes per pallet to 64.
Over time, the 14 percent more fruit each pallet could hold helped increase warehouse productivity for the Mt. Vernon, WA grower-shipper of apples, pears, and stone fruit. “It’s a little change,” admits Addie Pobst, organic integrity coordinator, but it does make a difference. “It’s worth it,” she adds.
At loading and delivery points, there are changes as well. Last November, the USDA named the Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market as the winning terminal market in its “Terminal Market U.S. Food Waste Challenge.” The National Assoc-iation of Produce Market Managers promoted the effort by encouraging distributors to divert fruit and vegetables from the waste stream through recycling, composting, as animal feed, or by donating to food rescue programs.
Dan Kane, the Philadelphia market’s general manager, says the terminal market continually evaluates ways its 22 wholesale members and their employees can lessen environmental impact and divert healthy produce to Philabundance, a regional food bank.
Even the market’s construction, completed in 2011, was designed to include waste management processes with its own recycling facility. “We’re learning how to buy smarter, and consequently, cut down on tonnage fees,” explains Kane. “Our customers are very savvy and care deeply about our commitment to waste reduction. Many companies we work with have policies in place that seek to reduce, recycle, and recover, and we share that goal.”
Retail Efforts Just as terminal markets earned credit from the USDA for waste reduction, grocers have been making an effort and received accolades of their own. The USDA and Environmental Protection Agency recognized several retail chains including Ahold, Walmart, Wegmans, and Weis Markets, which were all part of the agencies’ new “U.S. Food Loss and Waste 2030 Champions” program. In addition, Kroger Company was one of the EPA’s “2016 Food Recovery Challenge” winners for diverting 56 million pounds of perishables from landfills to local food banks.
For its part, Northgate Markets is taking a page from Gills Onions’ playbook and turning food scraps from its California stores into energy, while Lakeland, FL-based Publix Super Markets is a longtime proponent of eco-savvy processes. Publix began its ‘Green Routine’ back in 2001 to educate and encourage workers and customers to think more about energy conservation; the program later expanded to include waste reduction, recycling, and conservation.
Maria Brous, Publix’s director of media and community relations, believes waste prevention and reduction go together. The grocery business, in particular, entails a certain amount of shrink. To reduce waste, the supermarket chain’s perishables recovery program diverts food to relief organizations like Feeding America. “Managing our supply chain is vitally important to waste prevention and reduction,” asserts Brous. “Having the right product at the right time is a great start.” Ordering, proper product handling, and effective merchandising are also key to waste prevention and maintaining margins.
The Future For companies considering a sustainability program, Pobst suggests adopting a long-term mindset. “Nothing will turn around overnight, so think in terms of long-term change,” she advises. Gradual, small changes will, she notes, “over time, cumulatively produce a measurable effect.”
Both La Luzerne and Rodoni say dedicated sustainability personnel will make any program more effective, but stress that management support is the most important factor for waste prevention efforts. Industry collaboration and support are also pivotal. “Companies need to start taking a proactive approach before it becomes dictated,” Rodoni says. “If we work together as an industry, it will lead to solutions.”
