Increasing concerns about food waste in the West recently led a former top executive in the food retail business to develop a business model in which food waste is reduced upstream from consumers.
His concept, The Daily Table, is proposed as a chain of hybrid grocery store-restaurants cooking on-site with expired food products and then selling nutritious counter-ready meals.
The use of products would not be brand-driven, and most locations would be situated in underserved urban markets. By repurposing these products, such a project would extend the shelf life of many food items that often end up in landfills.
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This initiative reflects the growing unease generated by recent statistics that show 90 percent of consumers throw out food prematurely and 40 percent of our food supply is left unused every year because of problematic food dating.
This equates to more than $1,500 of food per year for an average Canadian family of four.
This problem is partially caused by western consumers’ resistance to any imperfection in consumer products.
They have also become accustomed to the highest quality food at affordable prices. Canadians have access to the cheapest food basket in the world after the United States and Singapore.
Abundance, affordability and convenience have encouraged consumers to become more risk averse and increasingly prone to food-related indulgence. The food industry has perhaps been too successful in giving consumers what they have become accustomed to: tasty, appealing and affordable food. When an expiry date is reached, the alternatives are too compelling. It’s that simple.
This phenomenon is coupled with an increased focus on supply chain discipline.
An increasing number of manufactures use “best before” dates on packages to coerce food distributors and retailers to manage inventory in stores in favour of profitability.
Retailers are arguably more careful with product shelf life because dates are readily available to consumers. In turn, consumers have access to fresher, high-quality products.
As a result, inventory turnover has increased exponentially in recent years because product dating has become ubiquitous in the industry.
However, some believe that supply chain discipline has gone too far. The example of best before dates printed on containers of pure honey, which never expires, has been used to exemplify the problem.
Others have complained that labelling policies in Canada related to expiry and “best before” dates are too ambiguous.
However, Canada’s rules are relatively simple and straightforward when compared to the United States and other countries.
Indeed, other countries allow more abstract “sell by” or “best if used by” dates, which can further confuse the issue.
The challenge in food dating is to offer clearer information directly to consumers. Expiry and best before dates are now consumers’ primary source of information when assessing risks in real time.
The most effective way to empower consumers in reducing waste is by giving them access to more accurate information, at home, when products are in cupboards, freezers and fridges. To that end, a range of packaging strategies is required.
For example, active packaging, or smart packaging, interacts chemically or biologically with its contents. Labels could let consumers know if the product is still safe to eat.
Such technology is readily available but comes at a price. Because food safety has little or no currency in the Canadian marketplace, manufacturers have to think of ways to financially support this increase in cost.
An affordable solution might be actively incorporating the consumer as part of the industry’s food traceability scheme.
QR codes, the common square bar codes that can be scanned with any smartphone, could be used to give consumers more information about when the product was manufactured and expected shelf life. It could also provide tips on how to repurpose food items that could be deemed unsafe to eat.
Giving consumers direct access to data to make better choices, and in so doing reducing premature disposal of food, will likely make a difference.
Dr. Sylvain Charlebois is associate dean at the College of Management and Economics at the University of Guelph in Ontario. This column was distributed by www.troymedia.com and has been edited for length
