From food chain to food loop: preventing food waste

From food chain to food loop: preventing food waste

Current food supply chains have many points where food waste occurs, usually from Food Excess and By-Products (FE&Bs) that could have been utilised before the point of no return. This waste can be prevented if there is an enabling preservation and process pathway for the food, before it can no longer be used as a nutrition source. For horticultural food production and processing in Australia, there are several contributors to this issue, which include:
The significant distances between where food is produced and where it has to go for either fresh
retail or market sales or processing
1. Industry standards relegating ‘imperfect’ product to remain on-farm
2. A lack of financial return for imperfect product that cannot be sold as fresh produce, and is
a financial loss if harvested and sent on to food processors.
3. Waste levels can be erratic, some years have lower rates than others making a fixed
factory not as feasible.
One approach that could assist in tackling this issue is to take suitable processing activities to the source of food production through mobile Food Modular Processing Systems (Food MoPS). This approach could be deployed to absorb any food excess remaining on farm and assist in extending
the production part of the food supply chain into different circular economy ‘loops’. Here we present our integrated Food MoPS valorisation system and mathematical model that integrates several core process modules for deployment to food production and processing sites. There are 4
key elements which are: 1. The Capture and Preserve (CaP) module to extend shelf life of produce and enable it to extend further into the food supply ‘loops’, 2. The Extract and Refine (EaR) module that separates valuable nutritional compounds and structural polymers, 3. The Symbiotic
Algal/Fermentation Energy and Residues (SAFER) module, and 4. The Clean and Feed (CaFe) module. Each of these modules have a part to play in zero food waste processing, ensuring that
the entire food resource has a use and is not lost. To determine the most practical and economically viable pathways through the modules, we developed a simulation approach that
employs the principles of technoeconomic and life cycle analysis. The simulation tested a range of horticultural produce streams and included matching processed product yield to market demand.
From this approach, we determined the best division of the entire FE&B resource that and has the best economic return.

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