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Fighting food waste. Food waste puts more pressure on fragile global food systems, and rotting food generates roughly one-tenth of global greenhouse-gas emissions. New digital platforms aim to limit food waste, creating more sustainable food systems. For example, a Mumbai-based IT company uses smart sensors to track the freshness of food products throughout the supply chain. The system assesses the shelf life of products like chips and fries by factoring in variations in temperature and moisture, as well as other changes. [WEF]
Produce price hikes. Drought in North Africa, devastating floods in Pakistan, bitter frosts in Central Asia, the war in Ukraine, and other issues have rattled the global food system, sending prices soaring. Across the globe, vegetable prices are surging, spurring some countries to ban the export of carrots, onions, and other staples of nutritious meals to safeguard supplies. These restrictions are limiting people’s access to fresh produce in markets around the world, the United Nations and the World Bank said in February 2023. [Bloomberg]
Risks to global breadbaskets. Disruptions to the world’s food system—such as climate change—are deepening the global food crisis. The world’s breadbaskets are at serious risk. Just five countries (China, the US, India, Brazil, and Argentina) produce 60% of the world’s food, reveal McKinsey Global Institute director Jonathan Woetzel and coauthors. Even within these countries, food production is highly concentrated in a few regions. Extreme weather events in those regions could affect a large portion of global production.
Food loss. Each year, an estimated $600 billion in food loss happens at or near the farm during or just after harvest. The loss of the food itself is bad enough, but the secondary effects are alarming, as well: the water consumption linked to food loss and waste amounts to approximately one-fourth of the world’s freshwater supply, according to McKinsey senior partner Clarisse Magnin-Mallez and coauthors. Learn more about the global food crisis and what grocery retailers and consumers can do to prevent a worsening scenario.
— Edited by Belinda Yu, editor, Atlanta
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