Most research on food loss and waste looks at the two ends of the food chain: farms and households. This report looks at the middle. It examines how food processors and manufacturers can measure and reduce losses in their own operations, and why their place in the supply chain gives them influence over waste both upstream and downstream. It also sets out what governments and funders can do to help. Produced with support from Tetra Pak.
Almost all food passes through a processor on its way from farm to plate. Yet processing has been a footnote in food loss and waste research. Older estimates put its share of waste low, and very little data exists. Global figures still rest largely on a 2011 FAO analysis of 2007 data, and UNEP’s Food Waste Index doesn’t yet report processing-stage losses at all.
That blind spot is costly. Processors sit at the hinge of the food system. The contracts they write shape what farmers grow and discard. The labels, package sizes and shelf-life technologies they choose shape how much food gets thrown out in stores and homes.
Highlights from the report:
- Processing is a bigger share than we thought. Older global estimates put processing at under 10% of total food loss and waste. In the EU, newer data shows 19% of food waste happens at the processing stage.
- Processors shape waste they never see. Confusing date labels account for an estimated 7% of consumer food waste. Shelf-life technology changes the math too: aseptic UHT milk keeps 6–9 months at room temperature, compared with 7–14 days for refrigerated pasteurized milk.
- Many of the fixes are cheap. At one prepared-meals facility, switching from paper waste logs to digital touch screens cut food waste by 60% in nine months. It took staff less than five minutes a week. Campbell’s turned peaches that would have been dumped into salsa and raised more than $250,000 for hunger relief.
- Policy makes it stick. Japan requires companies to report their food waste and has cut national food waste by 53%. Voluntary corporate reporting, meanwhile, is retreating. The report calls on governments to incentivize or require public reporting; build food loss and waste into national climate plans; and fund the scale-up of waste-saving technologies.