Tomatoes rotting on vines because there is no one to pick them. Milk curdling in jars because there are no markets to bring it to. Fruits decaying on shelves because customers don’t have access to produce like before. Lost resources, wasted food. The restrictions in movement and quarantine measures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have increased the levels of food loss and waste the world over.
As the pandemic continues to put people’s food security and nutrition at risk in many countries and hurt the livelihoods of small producers, we are called to re-evaluate our food systems.
One thing is clear: in this time of crisis, there is no room for food loss and waste!
Fortunately, new and innovative technology is being developed every day to improve the way our food is produced, distributed and consumed, transforming our food systems for the better. Here are just a few examples:
1) Apps to maximise the sale or donation of food
Smartphones are increasingly widespread, and apps are a simple and easy way to reach large portions of the global population. During the pandemic, the popularity of apps to solve food loss and waste has increased. Several countries also began to develop apps to facilitate the logistics, transport and e-commerce of perishable foods.
Too Good to Go is one app that gives shops and restaurants in many cities a platform to sell their surplus food at reduced prices at the end of the day. For example, in Rome, app users can find food offered at discounted prices by a neighbourhood market, a large supermarket chain and popular city eateries.
The Feeding India app, instead, focuses on donations of food for those in need. Restaurants and individuals can sign up on the app to donate food, which is then collected and distributed by this non-profit’s network of more than 4 500 volunteers. These regular feeding programmes run in more than 45 Indian cities and have served over 4.8 million meals so far.
In Kenya, the Twiga Foods platform connects 3 000 food outlets a day with fresh produce through a network of 17 000 farmers and 8 000 vendors, allowing restaurants to buy only what they need and farmers to deliver more efficiently. The company has reduced typical post-harvest losses in Kenya from 30 percent to 4 percent for produce brought to markets on the Twiga network.