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The global food waste conundrum continues to grow, but smart tech developed in Australia could cut the problem significantly, one farm at a time.
Key points:
- The CSIRO worked with Nutri V and Fresh Select to turn food waste from farms into healthy snacks
- Broccoli, pumpkin and cauliflower can be processed on the farm for same-day delivery to the supermarket
- The technology could help reduce a massive waste problem on Australian farms
It is estimated that a quarter of all food grown never leaves the farm, and up to 40 per cent of what does get home from the supermarket is often left to rot.
A 2021 United Nations report said if food waste were a country, it would be closely behind the USA and China as the third-highest emitter of greenhouse gases.
In fact, 31 per cent of all food grown worldwide goes uneaten and putting food in landfills releases tonnes of greenhouse gases, adding up to almost 10 per cent of total global emissions.
Australia is aiming to reduce food waste by half by 2030, but it will require everyone from the farm gate to the home to significantly reduce waste.
Turning vegetables into powder
Start-up company Nutri V is working with the CSIRO to turn vegetable waste into healthy snacks.
With the help of the CSIRO, the company has developed a processing system that is now operating on the farm of their parent company, Fresh Select, one of Australia's largest brassica growers and a supplier to Coles.
Broccoli, pumpkins and cauliflowers that don't meet supermarket specifications are picked and sorted in the mornings, then washed, dried into powders and turned into a veggie snack by the afternoon.
According to Nutri V chief executive Raquel Said, the technology is helping Fresh Select reduce up to 15 tonnes of waste product each week, including excess leaves and stalks.
"It could be an oversupply, it could be weather damaged, sometimes they're just out of spec, so too big or too small," she said.
"We're taking all the vegetables that can't be harvested and turning them into high nutrient vegetable powders, and those powders are the star ingredient in our Nutri V Goodies snacks."
It could mean that growers affected by weather events like the storm near Melbourne two days ago will have a home for vegetables that have been damaged by hail.
Support from CSIRO for concept pilot
The company is now gearing up production of the equipment, which it hopes to see installed on sites all around Australia.
CSIRO agriculture and food director Michael Robertson said it was an important way for farmers and supermarkets to become more sustainable.
"It is a really lovely example of us turning waste into a high-value product [and] of how agriculture is becoming more conscious of reducing its environmental footprint," Dr Robertson said.
"Our role was helping them to get over that initial hump of testing something that was high risk, that was uncertain if it would work, so this enables them to test the technology, prove that it works, and then take it into their own business and scale it up."
The new snacks could also help increase the amount of vegetables Australians eat.
Less than 10 per cent of Australian adults eat the recommended five serves a day.
Each packet of Nutri V snacks contains the equivalent of two serves of vegetables.
"While fresh is best, it's an easy way to consume those vegetables," said CSIRO process engineer Andrew Lawrence, who developed the pilot technology that Nutri V has gone on to commercialise.
Tomatoes being 'upcycled'
Each year 7.6 million tonnes of food is wasted across Australia on farms, in restaurants and in homes.
The Fight Food Waste Cooperative Research Centre (FFWCRC) is working with Bowen tomato growers and the Queensland Government to figure out a way to use surplus tomatoes and capsicums.
FFWCRC's Francesca Goodan Smith said the solution was to turn the fresh product into another form.
"A staggering amount gets wasted each year, so they looked at converting that surplus into high-value extracts and to dried powders and beverages."
The iconic Australian product, Vegemite, is actually an example of "upcycling" — the process of converting food that would otherwise go to waste, into a new, innovative food product.
It is based on a waste product from the brewing industry.