An Australian-first initiative has been launched to halve Australia's food waste by 2030, and reduce an incredible $1.72 billion of fruit and vegetables being wasted each year.
The CQUniversity-led research project will help Australian growers save millions of tonnes of fruit and veg from land fill, informing new action plans across horticulture, and specifically for banana and melon industries.
Produced with End Food Waste Australia, the Australian Bananas Growers' Council, Melons Australia, and through extensive collaboration from the horticulture industry, the initiative will save fresh produce, and help halve Australia's food waste by 2030.
Australia loses up to 22 per cent of its total horticulture production worth $1.72b from farm to retail each year.
CQUniversity's Centre for Regional Economies and Supply Chains director Professor Delwar Akbar said growers were desperate for solutions to the huge amount of waste, and wanted strategies to rescue what is perfectly edible, useable food.
"Our analysis has identified nine priority actions to reduce waste from farm to retail, from enabling better on-farm innovations and data-collection, to reducing over-production, improved regulation and policy, and exploring ways to repurpose excess, for instance in food products with longer shelf lives," Prof Akbar said.
"Producers feel they have to over-produce to make sure they meet the supply chain actors', and consumers', expectations.
"We've asked for a review of this process and enacting the other priority actions, because food is being wasted, when it could be feeding hungry Australians."
The 15-month project mapped waste hotspots, included industry stakeholder interviews and surveys, and highlighted most impactful areas for action.
The research also highlighted surprising facts about fruit and vegetable waste in Australia, including:
- More than 3 million tonnes of fruit and vegetables are wasted every year, enough to fill the MCG to the brim five times.
- Bananas are Australia's most wasted fruit, representing 23.7pc of all fruit waste, followed by oranges at 19.1pc, and apples at 18pc.
- The average percentage of crop waste for bananas and melons is 20 to 29 per cent
- A 20pc reduction in melon wastage would save 48,953 tonnes of melons, and more than $53 million a year,
- Although 31.4pc of fruit and veg waste happens on-farm and in processing, nearly as much happens within the household - 33.2pc.
Professor Akbar's research team also included Professor Hurriyet Babacan, Dr Margaret Matty, Dr Trang Nguyen, Dr Azad Rahman, and Professor Phillip Brown.
End Food Waste Australia chief executive officer Dr Steven Lapidge said reducing horticulture waste was critical to reaching Australia's goal of halving food waste by 2030.
"Reducing fresh produce waste would create billions of dollars of economic benefits, reduce environmental impacts in Australia's food system, and directly help feed millions more food insecure Australians every year."
Dr Lapidge challenged food industry businesses to begin enacting priority actions in the plan, and producers to join the Australian Food Pact.
