Today, an estimated 470 million smallholder farmers and supply chain actors across developing countries lose an average of 15 percent of their income to food spoilage. Spoilage limits how much of their harvest they can sell, and in times of surplus the risk of spoilage may prompt farmers not to harvest at all to spare themselves the hard labor required for diminishing returns. Another consequence is that the inputs – including labor, water, seed, fertilizer – and their environmental costs are lost along with the product. Over time, these losses compound, land yield drops due to mismanagement, and the overall ecosystem is affected. Food waste, spoilage, and loss are recognized globally as urgent problems. Yet, they are solvable and even preventable.
Solving for food spoilage would feed 1 billion more people by 2050 – many of them across Sub-Saharan Africa, where food insecurity is greatest. But it would mean more than just more food for more people – addressing spoilage would also increase nutritional security, build greater resilience within food systems, and improve farmers’ livelihoods. And it would create benefits to the local ecosystems, ensuring that scarce resource inputs such as crop land, freshwater and fertilizer yield useable calories rather than waste, which has both positive nutrition and ecologic impacts.
Source: Rockefeller Foundation
Apeel started up to address the problem by thinking of a natural way to preserve food – they use materials that exist in the peels, seeds, and pulp of all fruits and vegetables to create a protective layer that seals moisture in and keeps oxygen out. The layer is essentially tasteless, odourless, and plant-based protection. That means produce stays fresh, nutritious, and delicious twice as long. It also means less produce goes to waste throughout the supply chain—from grower to retailer to consumers at home. The second order effects of this monumental: reduces pollution from transport, reduced pressure on arable land, and less urgency to use up the ingredients.
Source: Apeel