Cold Link Africa Mar/Apr 2017 | Page 25

EVENTS AND EXHIBITIONS

INCORPORATING COLD CHAIN

global network of 1 000 dealers, Carrier offers a complete cold chain solution from harvest to consumer. Its business is to develop innovation in transport refrigeration for sea and road, cold chain monitoring, telematics, and supermarket refrigeration, explained Appel. Its tracking and monitoring system eliminates the risk of fines being imposed on logistics role players. CO 2 systems are being extended further across the cold chain, and Europe boasts of having at least 3 000 systems in operation in supermarkets.“ The wide cross section of delegates at the Cold Chain Summit of 2016 have accepted the challenge to road map the route towards reducing food loss and waste, not only in their own region but across the globe,” said Appel.

CARBON EMISsIONS FROM FOOD LOSS

Most forums, summits, and debates around food loss and waste focus on the fight against global hunger, and the loss and the waste along the distribution chain from source to consumer. Spreading the global food production to the world’ s population of 7 billion would not only reduce the number of 800 million hungry people, but also reduce global carbon emissions. Consider the carbon emissions from the production of the 1.3 billion tonnes of food lost and wasted. The carbon emissions from the energy to plough, transport, irrigate, store, distribute, pack, and then destroy before consumption, accounts for the world’ s third largest source of carbon emissions if it were a single country. The ranking would be China, US, followed by Food Waste and Loss.

“ Saving the carbon emissions from all the production of food that is lost would be the same as removing all the cars off the roads in the US. The water used to produce the same food is sufficient to meet the entire water demand of Africa,” said John Mandyck, chief sustainability officer of United Technologies Corporation.“ Only 10 % of the global production of perishable is refrigerated. Extending the cold chain beyond the 10 % of all perishables is also a step towards reducing global carbon emissions.”

Reducing food loss and waste offers simultaneous solutions to a number of the challenges facing the planet and its population, such as reduction in

Inside the massive aquarium— the biggest in the world in terms of the volume of water.

global warming, feeding the hungry, and conserving the natural resources of water and available land.“ The scales are so large that anything that is done will have a significant impact. People learn from one another and the more networking and discussion around these challenges, the more impact it will have on a wider application of technologies and the bigger dent it will make on the reduction of global warming and hunger,” explained Mandyck.

UN environment resolution to halve food waste

In the keynote address, Clementine O’ Connor of the United Nations Environment Programme( UNEP) quantified food loss and waste.

At producer prices, the waste and loss of vegetables cost the global economy approximately USD164-billion. Global cost of all food loss and waste amounts to USD940- billion. The second highest loss occurs in the meat sector, and next in fruits, excluding those used for making wine.

“ Food loss and waste occur along the entire value chain, from production to consumption, including that in homes, hotels, restaurants, and businesses. In 2015, UNEP called on all countries and companies to action on the Sustainable Development Goal 12.3( by 2030, halve per capita global food waste at the

There was time to visit the aquarium and the exhibits of seafaring nations.

retail and consumer levels, and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses). O’ Connor explained the key elements of the implementation plan as:

• Set targets for own area / region of activity;

• Measure progress towards targets; and

• Act against measured performance.

Green Biz, an initiative by consumer goods companies, was quoted by O’ Connor as being an example of setting targets. The 400 consumer goods companies of Green Biz have committed to preventing food waste, then maximising its recovery towards the goal of halving food waste within their own retail and manufacturing operation by 2025( versus a 2016 baseline). Green Biz will also contribute to the United Nation goals by 2030.

LOSS IN RETAIL OUTLETS

Research done by Tesco in the UK found that 32 % of food waste in the UK occurred in the value chain from