Sustainability Insights
Insights to help you make Transformative Sustainable decisions.
Is your food business interested in reducing food waste?
If you are a food processor, food retailer or in the food service industry in Ireland and would like to reduce your food waste costs, Savour Food can help you.
Food waste is a significant source of waste and a substantial cost to food service businesses as well as being a significant contributor to climate change. According to the EPA, globally, more that 25% of food produced is wasted. It is estimated that food waste generates about 8% to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, reducing food waste is an effective climate action.
The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) have provided an e-tool which offers free support and consultancy to Irish Businesses in tackling food waste. This e-tool is a resource designed for food service businesses who wish to take steps to reduce food waste and measure progress in doing so.
Moments from Our Members
Our Origin Green members continue to showcase innovation in Sustainability and drive forward in Sustainable Food and Drink Production.
Origin Green Ambassador Global Insight Reports 2021
In this series of Global Insights Reports, the Origin Green Ambassadors bring you their Valuable Insights on some of the most pressing Sustainability Issues and Opportunities facing our Industry.
On a planetary level, climate change threatens humanity’s very existence. More immediately, as humanity moves to address this threat, entire sectors, and individual companies within those sectors, are facing the existential threat of being eclipsed if they fail to respond quickly enough with the changes that are going to be required by consumers, by their B2B customers, and by local and international legislation. A zero-based approach to your supply chain strategy is going to be essential for your company’s medium-term survival. Aligning climate priorities with your supply chain infrastructure now will give you first-mover advantage; every quarter you defer this inevitable transformation merely hands that advantage over to your competitors.
We are facing a massive Catch-22 – humanity needs food to survive, but producing that food in sufficient quantities to nourish the world’s expanding population is, literally, killing our planet. Science, as ever, has developed an answer and thankfully, it’s a palatable one. Sustainable diets move past the simplistic Animal-based VS Plant-based dietary camps and rather look at the problem holistically. A sustainable diet is sustainable for: the person who eats it, the person who grows or produces it, and for the planet that it is produced on. We are moving from Animal- or Plant-based thinking to PLANET-based thinking.
Living in lockdown made many consumers connect with the food they had and the food waste they were creating. A study by WRAP in the UK found consumers reduced waste due to having more time to prepare and plan meal, but also because more were feeling an acute sense of food 'insecurity'. The pandemic drove constraints in our food supply chain resulting n a lack of availability. We also saw a spike in poverty levels where due to the pandemic's impact on our economies in Ireland, FoodCloud reported a 70% increase in the number of people seeking food support from March to June in 2020. As a result, businesses, consumers, investors and governments are more engaged with the business case behind reducing food waste- especially as this increases profitability where food waste costs the Irish industry €2 billion a year post- farm gate, and Irish consumers up to €1,000 according to the EPA. Moreover, food waste has the potential to open up huge commercial prospects for the Agrifood sector through the circular economy principles and innovation this unlocks in our waste streams.