Pragmatic | 87Be smart to cut food wasteSmart packaging can help reduce food waste on the farm-to-fork journey, writes Alastair Hanlon, chief commercial offcer at PragmatIC Semiconductorood waste is a huge problem. Every year 1.3bn tonnes of food – one-third of all food produced for human consumption in the world – is lost or wasted. More than 40 percent of food Flosses occur at retail and consumer levels in industrialized countries. If food waste were a country, it would have the third-largest carbon footprint after the USA and China.This often-referenced statistic from a 2011 Food and Agricultural Organization report rang alarm bells when it was published, but the situation has become even worse over the last decade. A recent World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) report estimates that 1.2 billion tonnes of food produced globally is lost before it even By dynamically changing the pricing of products, leaves the farm. This means that as much as 2.5 billion tonnes is retailers can provide more options to consumers, with being wasted during the farm stage, contributing to a whopping 10 items priced differently according to their use-by datespercent of global carbon emissions. The WWF report shows that a major portion of global harvest “What if we could make this stage losses come from high- and middle-income countries in North America, Europe, and the industrialized regions of Asia, process smarter, so that despite these countries having higher on-farm mechanization and a third of the global population. businesses can use real-time Considering the scale of the issue, a lot of effort is being put in to understand how technology and data can help reduce wastage data to correctly assess when a along the farm-to-fork journey by giving stakeholders the data to make better decisions, using the often-overlooked ‘use by’ labels. product is safe to sell or consume”A signifcant portion of food wasted is safe to eat. In the UK, it is estimated that out of 9.5 million tonnes of food waste in even when they are in good condition. This is a major issue within 2018, over 6.4 million tonnes could have been eaten – roughly the meat industry, where wastage along the distribution line is a equal to over 15 billion meals. Unfortunately for both retailers and large contributor to carbon emissions. If we could eliminate the consumers, the only way of knowing whether an item is safe to need for destructive testing and other forms of wastage using use is by looking at the expiry dates on the package. These expiry sensors, we can reduce the amount of meat produced, and thereby dates are set by retailers based on hours of testing to determine reduce the total amount of carbon emissions. the ‘safest’ best before date, and these estimates can be extremely Alternatively, the price of an item can be locked to a digital conservative. According to WRAP (Waste and Resources Action scannable tag. By dynamically changing the pricing of products, Program), 8–11 percent of people mostly or entirely use the date retailers can provide more options to consumers, with items priced label to choose whether to eat a food item. Supermarket staff differently according to their use-by dates. This can help consumers also go by this information to decide when an item needs to be use their grocery budget more effciently. For example, if you know marked down or removed from the shelves. This continues to be a you are going to cook something tonight, you can pick a food item time-consuming process that has seen very little innovation since closer to the use-by date and save a little money in the process.sell-by dates were introduced in the 1950s. Implementing such solutions at scale will need close collaboration between packaging companies, food producers and Smarter technology companies to build traceability from farm to fork. At What if we could make this process smarter, so that businesses PragmatIC Semiconductor we are working to make this a reality can use real-time data to correctly assess when a product is safe using our ultra-low-cost fexible electronics technology, which to sell or consume? A simple way to do this would be by attaching allows for smart tags to be embedded on every item on the scannable digital IDs on food products which can provide real-time supermarket shelf. PragmatIC is part of SecQuAL, an innovative information and item-level traceability along the distribution chain. project running trials that aim to improve effciency in supply By scanning these smart tags on food packaging, they will also be chains and reduce food waste. The consortium is currently seeking able to know in seconds when a whole shelf of products is nearing leading UK retailers to participate in these trials to help improve the ‘use by’ date without having to manually check each item, food traceability.thereby saving thousands of employee hours and reducing wastage. The food industry is responsible for nearly 10 percent of global Going one step further, the packaging can also be embedded greenhouse gas emissions, but by optimizing manufacturing and with smart sensors so that when supermarket staff or consumers supply chain processes using novel technology that is scalable scan the product, they will be able to gain real-time information on and affordable, it is possible to deliver the signifcant reduction in the quality of the product based on parameters such as moisture, carbon footprint needed. Considering the scale of the problem, we humidity and smell. do not have a minute to lose. Today distributors and retailers conduct destructive and non-destructive testing of food products to check for quality, which ends up providing a very conservative estimate based on existing Go to www.pragmaticsemi.com for more information statistics. This means that too often, food items go into the bin Apr - Jun 2022