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NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) – Bananas keep yellow in gold.
Companies battling food waste in the United States have attracted about US $ 125 million in venture capital and private financing in the first 10 months of 2018, according to a report by ReFED, a coalition of international organizations. nonprofit, business and government agencies. This amount should increase.
Attractive funds are products such as smart labels that change color when milk spoils, haze to extend shelf life, and software to help grocery stores order the right amount of product to dispose of it. less.
Solutions have skeptics, but the problem is generally recognized as an economic and ethical calamity.
Each year, 1.4 billion tonnes of food, one third of the world's production, end up in landfills.
According to some estimates, this accounts for nearly 1 trillion US dollars of annual waste and the production of about 8% of all greenhouse gases caused by man. At the same time, nearly 800 million people are hungry each day.
COMMERCIAL OPPORTUNITY
"Investors see that food waste is an important business opportunity," said Michelle Masek, marketing director at Apeel Sciences, who this month entered into a partnership with a leading European supplier of solutions using water base, announces the company. maturity up to four days.
The problem is that individuals, not restaurants, supermarkets or farms, are among the main offenders.
In the United States, about 43% of all waste comes from the end of the supply chain, in domestic kitchens, according to a 2016 ReFED report. A Natural Resources Defense Council study found that 68% of what is discarded is always edible.
People are aware of their shortcomings, according to a 2016 survey. They feel guilty, but not guilty enough to make a difference.
But not everyone is convinced that the solution lies in more things.
GROCERY
"I fear that this explosion of food technology and food waste will degenerate into collapse," said Elizabeth Balkan, NRDC director of food waste. If consumers want to shed less food, they need to plan better and store better, she said. This "requires lifestyle adjustments, but it should not work things that require a lot of cost and equipment at the cutting edge of technology."
The hope for a serious change, and the greatest investment opportunity, lies in the grocery stores, where the narrow margins and fierce competition of Walmart, Amazon's Whole Foods market. com and European transplants Aldi and Lidl constitute a financial incentive.
Not only are the lost tomato and expired cheddar revenues lost, but so is the removal of it.
"When they started to realize the cost of food waste, we saw a change," said Anne Greven, co-global director of agri-food innovation at Dutch lender Rabobank.
IMPERFECT PRODUCT
Startups intervened.
FoodMaven, which sells food surpluses and what it describes as "imperfect products" at restaurants and commercial kitchens, announced a $ 10 million investment in January by family members Walton and Pritzker, in addition to the 8, $ 6 million US first round of financing.
Afresh Technologies, which operates machine learning to help retailers buy just enough to keep inventory in equilibrium, followed a US $ 1.7 million fundraising in January 2018 with undisclosed fundraising , but more important, closed in December.
Other companies include Bluapple, a maker of a gas absorption device for refrigerators, who claims to add a few more days to berries and green vegetables, and Ovie, who says his Smarterware combines Tupperware and sensors for let you know how long there is salad left the beef stir fry. Companies like Copia and Goodr make it easy to donate food.
"WASTE IS IN ITS HEART A SPENDING"
Older companies are also seeing the interest of new products to solve the problem. Brand Newell's Rubbermaid announces that the containers in its Fresh Works range are able to extend the shelf life of items like strawberries and leafy greens.
Walmart "views food waste in a more holistic way," said Stephanie Feldstein, director of population and sustainability at the Center for Biodiversity, a non-profit organization.
For example, the largest US retailer has halved the delivery time of strawberries from the farm for sale, adding two to three days to the useful life of the berries.
Through its Customer Value program, Walmart reduces the price of items that will expire soon to increase the chances that they will be purchased and has created a standardized date tag to reduce the risk of problems at home. Walmart donates to local food banks what will not be sold.
"Waste is an expense at its heart," said Laura Phillips, Walmart's Senior Vice President of Global Sustainability.
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