Environmentally friendly and plastic-free: The vision of EIT Food

There is no question that the climate crisis has a negative impact on every sector, including the agri-food and beverage industry. However, improving the sustainability of the food system is particularly urgent as it contributes to 26 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, 70 percent of freshwater abstraction and over a third of food waste worldwide.

Our mission at EIT Food is to make the food system more sustainable, healthier and trusted. We believe that we are all responsible for, and connected to, the food that we eat. This means, we all need to work together to improve our food.

We are currently focusing our work on six areas of sustainable food innovation to achieve the greatest scientific, societal and economic impact for this vast and complex sector. Our six areas of focus cover sustainable aquaculture , circular food systems, sustainable agriculture, alternative protein, targeted nutrition and traceability.

According to the FAO, about one third of the food produced in the world is wasted. In Europe alone, some 88 million tonnes of food are wasted, at a cost of €143 billion.

There are now seven billion people in the world. We know that in order to feed a growing world population and assure their food security, we will have to sustainably increase food production and productivity, whilst also reducing food losses and waste.

In my opinion, the zero-waste movement is key in shining a light on the excessive amount of waste produced by individuals, organizations and countries across the world. It shows that reducing food waste can have far-reaching benefits that go beyond saving money. The European Commission calls food waste an ethical, economic and environmental issue, and the reduction of food waste is now part of the Farm to Fork Strategy of the European Green Deal.

As food waste prevention is part of the EU’s plan for a circular economy, EIT Food is supporting a variety of initiatives and food waste technologies that will facilitate this transition.

How do packaging-free stores increase ecological awareness? What are their main advantages?

In my view, supermarkets’ investment in packaging-free stores has generated welcome mass awareness that is critical to reducing plastic use on a large scale.

Packaging-free stores provide fresh, creative ways to make packaging-free shopping easy and desirable for customers. For example, Ekoplaza in the Netherlands has devoted an aisle to 700 ‘plastic-free’ products. In addition, Waitrose (one of our partners in EIT Food) in the UK is trialling reducing single-use plastic through customers filling up their own containers, beer on tap and pick ’n’ mix frozen fruit sections.

Which long-term measures need to be taken to decrease plastic usage significantly?

There are several steps we can take to decrease plastic usage over the long-term. One brilliant example of a campaign pushing for long-term measures from a European alliance of NGOs, active groups, citizens and supporters is Rethink Plastic. They are calling for urgent action in three key areas: reduction, redesign and better management of plastics.

This alliance was instrumental in the adoption of the “Directive on the reduction of the impact of certain plastic products on the environment” (commonly referred to as the Single-Use Plastics (SUP) Directive) which came into force in July 2019. It aims to tackle pollution from single-use plastics (and fishing gear), as the items most commonly found on European beaches, and makes recommendations on how national decision makers can best implement provisions on single-use plastic.

In my mind, an important area of focus is to make compostable packaging alternatives available for mass production. Startups like TIPA manufacture bio-based, fully compostable packaging for the food and fashion industries. It compares its packaging material to orange peel, decomposing in 180 days in compost conditions.

We are also supporting a project that is looking to convert food waste into new types of alternative packaging to reduce the need for single-use and hard-to-dispose plastic. Though both of these solutions are in their early stages, transition to mass production should be the focus. The adoption of these alternatives can already be seen by major corporates like Nestle (another one of the EIT Food partners), who recently developed a high-speed, mass-production method to wrap its ‘Yes’ bar in paper.

How can food and beverage companies lower their amount of waste during the production process?

Food waste is generated throughout the food value chain, but a staggering 30 - 40 percent occurs in production and processing.

I believe food and beverage companies need to look to new technologies to reduce food loss, energy and water consumption across the supply chain. We are supporting our community to develop new food manufacturing processes with quality standards and guidelines for zero-waste. This includes diversifying the use of raw materials, reducing microbial/chemical contamination risks, as well as engaging consumers to enhance recycling and reduce food miles.

One exciting EIT Food project that addresses food waste is a production-planning tool for bakeries. The tool uses AI to record and then predict consumer preferences, understanding the bread that is popular on certain days, and helping to measure the right amount to produce. This is one example where new technology can adapt to consumers’ preferences to minimize unnecessary waste.

Next year's Anuga 2021 will once again offer a unique presentation of groundbreaking global trends that provide an outlook on the sustainable future of the food and beverage sector. One of the Food Trends in the upcoming edition will be, for example, the topic "Sustainably Produced or Packaged".