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Lack of adequate infrastructure facilities results in food wastage
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Friday, 29 July, 2022, 12 : 00 PM [IST]
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Nishkarsh Tiwari
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Food waste is a serious issue prevailing in the industry right now and needs to be rectified or taken care of seriously as it is also a threat to the environment, food security, and also the national economy. It has been analysed that one-third of food produced is wasted against food consumption. Food loss and waste (FLW), is estimated at about $900 billion.
The amount of FLW is about one-eighth of the world's population from a person is not able to acquire enough food to meet the daily minimum dietary energy requirements, over a period of one year. Food loss and waste have impacted both nutrition and the sustainability of food systems in their capacity to ensure proper food to deliver and preserve for our future generations.
FLW has been approached in two ways - either it can be from the waste perspective or it can be from a food perspective. From a waste perspective, it has a concern with the environment whereas from a food perspective it has a concern with food safety and security. Different measures have been taken for data collection for different countries and products to compare different countries' systems, studies, and how they are handling the situation of food wastage and then evaluate their data for quality.
Our country is the second largest producer of fruit and vegetables and the world's largest producer of milk but again the wastage produced is more than Rs 440 billion every year which is again a huge loss for us. While controlling the level of wastage produced is beyond the control of farmers or consumers. This problem has been to such an extinct that it has involved many more things like power supply availability, and proper attention towards this issue.
As we have already talked about the poor infrastructure and poor storage have affected not only the quality of product but also the freshness and price of that product. If I talk about food storage, this plays a major role in preventing the nutritional value of food, just due to storage issues, these food items give generation food-borne illness which is infected with the help of bacteria. Now supply chain management has played a major role in the food and dairy industry which is leading us to lesser wastage of milk, and food products.
Due to just unavailability of cold storage and improper transportation facilities, the food products including the perishable product are not able to come to consumers. The supply chain management companies have been keeping a connection between farmers and consumers which is resulting in surplus production away from the farmers. The challenge faced by the cold chain industry is the rising property prices which have been increasing over a few years. It uses electric power which is costlier and more challenging.
The majority of cold storage runs on electricity and the power backup needed for the operation which has led to a marked increase in operational costs. The Indian government has been offering billions of amounts to set up cold storage in order to safeguard perishables and the government has also collaborated with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), for setting up different centres for cold storage.
There are many multipurpose cold storage facilities that are designed to store a range of fruit, vegetables, dry fruits, spices, pulses, and milk throughout the year. The Controlled Atmosphere Storage method helps increase the shelf life while ensuring the quality and freshness of the produce. Using a ripening chamber helps maintain precise conditions specific to the product’s requirement. In fact, ripening is more uniform and the fruit has a firmer pulp texture and a better flavour. First is the lack of proper planning on the consumer part where people buy a lot of food without making a plan on when and how food will be prepared for consumption.
Food is also wasted by purchasing too much. Leftovers and partially used food account for food that goes to waste. The food safety protocols have no room for industrial processing. Food processing companies have taken high food safety regulations and must have no error margins. The wastage takes place because of the constraints to do with a lack of proper management, inadequate finances, and technical difficulties in the lines of harvesting methods, storage, and cooling problems in adverse weather conditions, processing, packaging, infrastructure, and marketing systems. While the intention is good, especially in anticipation of high customer volume and the ability to not run out of the menu, over-preparation often leads to wastage if all the food is unsold.
Foodservice operations are habitually more focused on over-merchandising in food stores and supermarkets by using beautiful and attractive displays thereby creating the idea of abundance in an attempt to promote sales and customer satisfaction. The consumer behaviour on focus here is the tendency of having a keen insight for good judgment which results in those who only prefer unblemished vegetables and fruits, and the restrictive must display for shelf-life dates.
Food wastage impacts biodiversity loss at a global level. In order to maximize agricultural yields, farmers have increasingly invaded wild areas in search of more fertile lands which led to the loss of biodiversity. The mass rearing of livestock for consumption and the use of pesticides in crop production has also significantly contributed to nitrogen, phosphorous, and chemical pollution in streams, rivers, and coastal waters thus affecting marine life.
According to research, the produced but unconsumed food accounts for approximately 1.4 billion hectares of land, constituting almost 1/3 of the planet’s agricultural land. It is also affirmed that throwing out a kilogram of beef amounts to a waste of 50,000 litres of water used in the meat production process. Similarly, 1000 litres of water are wasted if one glass of milk is poured down the drain.
(The author belongs to Sunderdeep College of Hotel Management)
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