Food loss and waste has become an alarming issue of great public concern. FAO presented the estimate that around 1/3 of the world’s food was lost or wasted every year. According to the United Nations, half of fruits and vegetables produced each year are gone to waste.
The global cost of food wastage is $750 billion annually, and the global volume of food wasted is approximately 1.6 billion tons. “Each day 35 to 40 percent of food that is grown or raised is wasted, and 71 percent of global water consumption is used to irrigate crops,” said Dan Glickman, former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.
Today 60 percent of food loss comes from the U.S. and Europe, yet globally more than 800 million people face hunger. As the population grows, food production will have to increase by approximately 60% by 2050.
The $750 billion annual food waste disaster is a market that many companies are targeting, hoping to succeed with a solution that will save people across the globe from hunger, and better use our resources.
Here are 3 companies fighting to make a positive impact on food waste:
Save Foods – Israel
Save Foods is a cutting-edge company, dedicated to delivering integrated natural solutions for improved safety, freshness, and quality to the food system. The goal of Save Foods is to ensure that produce is protected, the entire journey, from field to fork. Save Foods has developed new solutions that preserve produce, prevent food-borne illnesses and greatly reduce and may even eliminate the use of the hazardous chemicals commonly used. Save Foods products do not leave residues of toxicological concerns to the consumer or the environment. Save Foods products are based on a proprietary blend of food acids. The fruit and vegetable wash is odorless and does not irritate the eyes, skin, or airways.
Hazel Technologies – USA
Hazel Technologies develops biotechnology for reducing waste in the agricultural supply chain, inventing solutions to reduce food waste to improve the fresh produce supply chain. It also provides shelf-life extension technologies and services to combat the global food waste problem and improve profitability for its customers. Hazel’s® USDA-funded 1-MCP technology conditions the storage atmosphere to reduce respiration rate & increase resistance to ethylene, and works in a variety of storage conditions.
Apeel Sciences – USA
Apeel Sciences is a company based in Goleta, California whose edible coating product Apeel can make avocados, citrus and other types of fruit last twice as long by using a tasteless edible coating made from plant materials, so its all natural. Apeel developed a plant-based layer for the surface of fruits and vegetables that is tasteless and odorless and that keeps moisture in while letting oxygen out.
