Reducing global fresh produce waste by developing our innovative ethylene scavenger as a self-adhesive label

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Every year, 33% of all food produced globally is wasted or lost during production or consumption. In the UK alone, annual waste is 15 mt (worth over £19 bn) of which 75% could have been avoided. Across Europe 27% of all fruit & vegetables are lost or wasted between processing & consumption (FAO). Current UK food waste of 12 mt is associated with the production of 20 mt of greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, uneaten food occupies almost 1.4 billion hectares of land (~30% of the world’s agricultural land) and around 550 billion m3 of water is wasted on a global scale from fruit & veg which are never consumed (FAO). As the EC expects food waste to climb from 90 mtpa to 126 mt by 2020, across Europe, there is clearly a need to develop new technologies which are capable of prolonging the life of perishable produce. One way of prolonging the life of fresh fruit & vegetable produce is through ethylene scavenging. Ethylene is a plant hormone responsible for premature ripening, salad wilting and colour loss. Our aim is to adapt our patented ethylene scavenging agent for use as a self-adhesive label to attach onto fruit packs/fruit punnets. It is envisaged the benefits of this new solution will be: • Extend shelf life by at least 2 days; • 50% reduction in fruit waste due to extended shelf life – reducing biowaste by 24 thousand tonnes per annum (ktpa) & reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 36 ktpa; potential to reduce this by up to 2.4 million tonnes; • Completely safe for food application; • Generate £57 million in revenue for users of the technology; • Create a total of up to 660 jobs throughout the fresh produce industry