Keeping an eye on our waste-lines

In July, MPs called on the government to ban the disposal of food waste in landfill sites – just one suggestion to help address the throwaway attitude that has become apparent in the UK. But could more proactive waste management methodologies be adopted earlier in the food chain, to prevent valuable resources from ever becoming ‘rubbish’? Paul Featherstone, group director of surplus food recycler SugaRich, considers what food manufacturers can do to watch their waste-lines.

The parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee hit the headlines in July when they called for the government to introduce a ban on food scraps being sent to landfill. Admittedly household food waste is a colossal issue in the UK and the wider EU, so it is great to hear the debate unfolding in a bid to tackle this problem.

Yet greater effort should be exerted at earlier stages in the food chain, if we are to achieve the ever-pressing target to halve edible food waste by 2020. Not only would more responsible waste management practices better protect the global environment, and the security of increasingly scarce raw materials; they would also reduce the economic strain that throwaway behaviours can cause. In April for example, the House of Lords EU Committee in April revealed that 15 million tonnes of UK food waste per annum equates to a financial loss to business of at least £5 billion every year – it was perhaps no wonder they called for urgent action.

Thankfully, many food manufacturers, large and small, are working hard to watch their waste-lines, but further impetus is required.

Under the principles of the waste hierarchy – a prioritised programme that encourages the most appropriate use of resources – prevention of food ‘waste’ at source is crucial. This means valuable materials are retained and costly waste management exercises avoided.

Steps should therefore be taken during the manufacturing process to assess the root cause of any ‘waste’, whether due to human error or a technological fault. Of course some by-products will be inevitable, perhaps as a result of trial runs. However technology now exists to identify where surplus food is occurring at various stages in a production line, enabling management time, effort and money to be carefully invested in the implementation of process improvements and the avoidance of waste. After all, trying to get it right first time is a key philosophy for any manufacturing environment.

When the creation of surplus food cannot be avoided or reduced, and when materials are unsuitable for reuse, recycling should be prioritised as the next route.  Recycling may be a concept that some businesses associate more with packaging, rather than food, but methodologies exist to safely harness the value of food unsuitable for human consumption.

Starch-rich foodstuffs including biscuits, bread, cakes, crisps, confectionery and breakfast cereals, for example, can be recovered, reprocessed and converted into high quality ingredients for use in animal feed. This process is subject to strict legislation and quality control mechanisms, but essentially it enables valuable nutrients to be retained within the feed/food network, not lost. Blended to suit farmers’ specific requirements, such feeds improve the quality of livestock products that people subsequently eat, hence closing the food chain loop.

And where such recycling is not feasible, there is the option to compost the residual food or send it for energy recovery. Anaerobic digestion (AD) for example, creates methane which has the potential to be used as vehicle fuel; and/or biogas which can be burned to produce heat and electricity; digestate which can be used as a fertiliser; and water. However, processes such as AD should only be considered when all earlier opportunities in the hierarchy have been exhausted.

If we are to truly commit to the UK’s resource agenda, then waste hierarchy compliance within the food sector is essential. The key thing is to remember the order of precedence and ensure that a waste management plan is in place, should surplus food creation prove unavoidable. With careful consideration and commitment to such a strategy, food manufacturers can enhance their production margins, avoid costly waste disposal routes they may have traditionally utilised, and reduce the potentially damaging environmental impact of comparatively throwaway behaviours.

Published in Food Processing – November 2014