Saving surplus, nourishing communities: scaling the fight against food loss and hunger in Mexico : Case studies on banana and broccoli food loss reduction options

Summary

Currently, the Network of Food Banks in Mexico ‘Red de Bancos de Alimentos de México’ (short: BAMX) is receiving and/or collecting products from various stakeholders in the food supply chain to donate to the beneficiaries of the food bank services. BAMX has to decide whether a certain food flow can go to a BAMX location or not upon receiving and/or collecting. In many cases transport costs and capacity play an important role. This decision making is extremely difficult in the case of supply from farmers because their supply is quite unpredictable. In this report three directions for improving access to food losses were addressed: (1) improve predictability of volumes and quality per supplier (supporting a better cost-benefit analysis for deciding whether or not to collect material from the supplier), (2) identifying options for valorising more of their lost products (including assessment of feasibility and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of their valorisation), including streams that are commonly not used for food but have a potential for food and food ingredients, and (3) improve post-harvest handling. To enhance the predictability of supply, it is recommended that BAMX invests in the quantitative analysis of available materials and their volume: • To carry out a number of measurements to quantify products suitable for donations, including residual flows, in the main broccoli supplying regions. Combined with farmer-data collected by BAMX in combination with farmer characteristics this enables BAMX to get good insight in the residual flows that can be expected. • Apply this to other vegetables and fruits categories (preferably build a database and expand your network with farmers and their characteristics). • In the measurements not only the products that are commonly considered food products should be considered, but also other residue streams that potentially may be used for food application. • To evaluate costs of collection and distribution internally (what is wasted from the incoming donation, how much is the total recovery fee) in such a way that every donation can be checked on financial feasibility, and learn from that when making decisions. • Acquire relevant infrastructural data like amount and size of cold storages from all BAMX locations to improve decision making. For broccoli, interesting residue streams were identified that are promising for food: florets, stems and leaves. The volume of florets that was not valorised was actually relatively small. Substantially larger volume products can be obtained as stems and leaves. These products can be obtained and may be donated as-is as fresh food products (like packaged fresh leaves, fresh stems or cubes), processed to food products (like broccoli soup) or to food ingredients (like broccoli powder). For exploitation of such products, it is recommended to first consider collection from processors only, since they are available at processors at large volume, whereas at farmers extra effort would be required for collection. For processing to food ingredients techno-economic and GHG emission analyses show that the stems have more potential in comparison to the leaves. Based on a very conservative estimate, the total annually available volume of broccoli stems in Mexico is estimated at 100,000 ton. Per ton of this stream that would be utilised, and would replace dedicated broccoli production (with an assumed – conservative estimate – GHG emission intensity of 0.048 kg CO2-eq. per kg harvested crop) 48 million kg CO2-eq. GHG emissions is prevented. We recommend BAMX to consider (1) collecting broccoli stems from processors and offer them either fresh or use them in sauces and/or soups for BAMX’s beneficiaries, and (2) assessing interests of entrepreneurs in developing processing pathways for this material to food ingredients. Optionally collection logistics for both pathways (products for fresh donation and products for processing) can be combined. For bananas, data from measurements have been obtained from only one actor involved in export chains (because of unsafety situation in the region). The percentage of rejected bananas turned out to be very substantial. These rejected bananas can be processed into products such as paste, snacks or flour. From techno-economic and GHG emission analyses for these applications it was concluded that the business case of such processing pathway can be attractive, depending on volume and market access. Furthermore, banana flour derived from bananas rejected by exporter (considered as a gluten-free flour) has substantially lower GHG emission impacts than most other gluten-free flour product types in the market. From the responses obtained from the banana company it was concluded that in the current practice most rejected bananas are already collected by a processing company; therefore by the company who responded to the measurements this stream is not considered promising. Reduction of Food Loss and Waste (FLW) is most effectively done at primary production level (first mile after harvest) and midstream. For food banks, postharvest handling to reduce FLW is viewed from a different angle. Food banks can transfer food waste from elsewhere in the supply chain into a consumable product. The most suitable products for this are consumable products that cannot be sold commercially due to market disruptions, irregular shape and appearance, inadequate consistency as raw material ingredients for processed products, or an edible parts that is not yet marketed (e.g. broccoli stems). Food banks need to ensure they receive consumable produce, coordinate and manage the throughput effectively, and focus on postharvest handling, including temperature-, relative humidity- and ethylene management during storage.