Why buy the right amount of food today when we can throw it away tomorrow?
Food waste a problem to be solved
A very broad topic, so vast that it is even difficult to understand. It affects many fields and is the cause of many evils, such as deforestation, you will say why? Well you have to know that animal agriculture is responsible for 91% of amazon distruction *. It affects climate change, once again are you really wondering? Greenhouse gas emissions from this sector come mostly from agriculture (cultivation of crops and livestock) and deforestation **. Here are just two examples to make you realize how much feeding a man has become over the years. Are you ready for another frightening fact now? 1/3 of the food produced is thrown away (source FAO). So you got it right, enormous damage is created to produce it and part of it is thrown away. Incredible isn’t it?
Source:
*https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/02/revealed-amazon-deforestation-driven-global-greed-meat-brazil
**https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data
Food Loss e Food Waste?
We examine two major problems of Food Loss and Food Waste, which are well defined by FAO:
Food loss is the decrease in the quantity or quality of food resulting from decisions and actions by food suppliers in the chain, excluding retailers, food service providers and consumers.
Empirically, it refers to any food that is discarded, incinerated or otherwise disposed of along the food supply chain from harvest/slaughter/catch up to, but excluding, the retail level, and does not re-enter in any other productive utilization, such as feed or seed.
Food loss, as reported by FAO in the FLI, occurs from post-harvest up to, but not including, the retail level.
Food waste refers to the decrease in the quantity or quality of food resulting from decisions and actions by retailers, food service providers and consumers. Food is wasted in many ways:
- Fresh produce that deviates from what is considered optimal, for example in terms of shape, size and color, is often removed from the supply chain during sorting operations.
- Foods that are close to, at or beyond the “best-before” date are often discarded by retailers and consumers.
- Large quantities of wholesome edible food are often unused or left over and discarded from household kitchens and eating establishments.
What can we do now?
Act immediately and act now, this is what I asked myself. How can I do? Hence my research that led me to an idea that can act on decreasing food waste. Through social policies to help citizens better understand the problem and bring benefits to the community.
Idea — BestBefore
The project aims to communicate the manager of supermarkets and food show owners with their customers through a platform that allows the distribution of coupons for expiring foods.
In this way, users will be able to buy products that they would consume in a short time with strong discounts and food could manage their inventories more efficiently, reducing waste.
The app would work using a premium function for supermarkets and foodstuffs that would have the opportunity to showcase their expiring products with offers to prevent that food from being thrown out.
Business Model
In writing the business model, it is mainly addressed to citizens who intend to obtain a lower price for food shopping and owners of food stores, in order to help improve their warehouse management. Everything is based on an excellent app development of applying the generation of coupons by a manager in charge of warehouse management and the insertion of these in a limited number to the availability of the product.
For merchants is a paid service and they are provided with personalized assistance and a business profile for the app where they can enter their offers.
Completely free access for users who are interested in purchasing products.
Finally, for the unsold, affiliation to charity structures is foreseen in order to create a weekly distribution and a better organization based on the data acquisition that will be obtained.
Vision
Implement a service available for all municipalities nationwide. Regional promotion campaigns to reduce waste. Improve charitable structures and equip them with technological tools that can help the community.
