‘We can do better on food waste challenge’ – Diversey Consulting
Catherine Francois, global director Diversey Consulting, told FoodQualityNews awareness of the issue is step one and then comes collaboration, simplification and education to tackle it.
“Creating awareness among stakeholders is crucial and there are a lot of industry layers to work with to ensure you know how to go about tackling the problem, for example, ensuring departments such as purchasing and operations co-operate," she said.
“Some people we work with think reducing food waste is a nice thing to do but they are not sure how to do it.
“It is a top down approach, business at the top needs to understand the benefits like improved production and labour costs but of course any action needs to meet KPI’s and drive profitability.
“People on the front line need to understand how to manage and deliver products safely and workers who may be there just on a short term basis need educating about best practices.”
The firm spoke to FoodProductionDaily during the Global Food Safety Initiative Conference last year.
Everyone has a role to play
Francois, who is also responsible for the Food Waste programme, said everyone has a role to play from the factory through to the consumer.
“Food waste is generated mostly with the consumers themselves and we help business reduce waste that consumers are leaving,” she said.
“50% of food waste is in the preparation, 35% on customer plates and 20% due to spoilage in the food service and hospitality sectors.
“If you can understand the different issues coming from, you can do an audit to evaluate preparation methods or upstream in the supply chain and find the source of it.
“It could be improving portion sizing, education, stock inventory and control or having better Food Safety Management Systems as temperature plays a huge part.”
Diversey Consulting provides legal and regulatory compliance advice, operational analysis and use of industry best practice, HACCP tools, GFSI scheme support and documentation preparation.
Sealed Air waste survey
Results from a survey last year found fifty million tons of food was wasted every year in the US, said Sealed Air.
The firm commissioned an evaluation of food habits, sustainability practices, and awareness of food waste issues.
It showed food waste is near the top of the list of consumers' environmental concerns and they are willing to change behaviors if better informed.
Sealed Air also found grocery shoppers associate food packaging more with safety than waste, see discarded packaging as worse for the environment than food waste and food that has minimal or no packaging as being more environmentally friendly.
In 2011, Diversey was acquired by Sealed Air Corporation, which tackles food waste through packaging technology and increasing shelf life.
Francois said this combined knowledge shows the benefits of collaboration.
“The Food Waste Programme covers a depth and breadth of sectors across Sealed Air and Diversey and it allows us to gather data to create benchmarks in terms of performance measurements and improvements," she said.
“If we can understand consumer behaviour better we can help our customers drive technology in their production lines.
“Companies need to understand their own operations and collaborate with the right partners, if you don’t have your own partners internally.
“Do a Life Cycle Analysis across the value chain to learn about new technology and share information across the right channels so you know how to use it to drive business growth.”
Sealed Air has 25,000 employees who serve customers in 175 countries and the company generated revenue of $7.6bn in 2012.
The portfolio of brands includes Cryovac brand food packaging solutions, Bubble Wrap brand cushioning and Diversey cleaning and hygiene products.
