1: The effects on the profits and costs of businesses by tackling food waste

Did you know that in the United Kingdom (UK) 1 in 6 plates of food is thrown away and 54% of all food waste is being sent to landfills, food waste is considered to be any food that isn’t consumed due to the food being spoiled or unnecessarily discarded (FoodAlert, 2016). The need for this to change is urgent as the effect food waste has on the environment is detrimental as food waste creates 20% of all UK’s CO²eq emissions. This also has adverse consequences on UK and worldwide businesses as they are losing huge amounts of profits due to lack of food waste management. This is being tackled by the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 12 named “Responsible Consumption”, you will see this mentioned many times throughout the blog as it is a goal set up by the United Nations to help develop sustainable consumption and production. 

Figure 1, Food Waste Plates (FoodAlert, 2016)

Businesses can see great financial benefits from reducing their food waste and investing in food waste management. Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) conducted a study that showed 99% of companies who partook, gained a net positive financial return after investing in food waste management. The benefit to cost ratio was 14:1, this meant that for every £1 the companies spent on food waste management they saw an average return of £14 (Keynes, 2019).

Suntory and their work with WRAP

Companies such as Suntory parent company of Ribena have taken great interest in how to be more sustainable and not lose profits due to bad food waste management.  The main area affecting Ribena production was their on-farm food waste. Around 2,000 hectares of black currents are grown in the UK, 90% of which is harvested for Ribena. Research was carried out by WRAP which showed significantly higher levels of waste being produced via the black current collection process than the company had previously thought (Armitage, 2021). If you would like to know more on the work Suntory and WRAP are doing, please give the YouTube video below a watch.

Money being wasted via food waste within the United Kingdom

Within the UK agricultural sector an estimated 3.6 million tonnes of food goes to waste due to bad harvesting techniques or machinery, this can be worth up to £1.2 billion. Carrying out research such has this has shown a 20% potential increase in profits for UK farms and increasing companies profits by a fifth.

Currently in the UK the hospitality sector throws away 920,000 tonnes of food per year estimating that this sector currently spends an astounding £2.4 billion on food waste, with restaurants yielding the highest cost within the sector of £682 million per year. With an estimate of one tonne of food waste costing a hospitality sector business between £1,700 - £4,000, this can lead to profit loses of £10,000 due to a lack of food waste management.

Companies on the frontline of Food Waste Management

Companies can curve these huge costs by looking into waste management companies such as Biffa. Biffa is the UK’s leading waste management company and has been established for over one hundred years. It deals with many different areas of waste disposal but has a unique way of disposing of food waste. Biffa uses Anaerobic Digestion facilities which takes food waste and converts it into renewable energy. Not only is this a benefit for the environment but it disposes of food waste in a save manner and businesses can use this service for as little as £7 per collection (Biffa 2021).

The conclusion to this is that businesses are losing profits needlessly all because they haven’t invested in food waste management. Food waste management doesn’t just mean disposing of food to landfills or food waste management companies, if you read part two you can read about new emerging apps businesses are using to tackle food waste.

 

By Rhys Hood 

@RhysHood009

References:

Biffa (2021) Food Waste Management. Available at: https://www.biffa.co.uk/business-waste/our-services/food-waste-collection (Accessed: October 2021). 

FoodAlert (2016) The business cost of food waste. Available at: https://www.foodalert.com/business-cost-food-waste/ (Accessed: October 2021).

Frances Armitage (2021) Tackling on-farm food waste key to increasing profits by a fifth. Available at: https://wrap.org.uk/media-centre/press-releases/tackling-farm-food-waste-key-increasing-profits-fifth# (Accessed: October 2021).

Jessica Keynes (2019) Business Matters: how reducing and recycling food waste can benefit your business. Available at: https://www.insidermedia.com/blogs/northwest/how-reducing-and-recycling-food-waste-can-benefit-your-business (Accessed: October 2021).