Global Food Waste Management Market Research Report (2016-2032)

Global Food Waste Management Market Research Report (2016-2032)

The global Food Waste Management market was valued at USD 42.6 billion in 2022, and it is projected to reach USD 83.2 billion by 2032, at an estimated CAGR of 6.9% during the forecast period. The global food waste management market has seen significant growth and evolution in recent years, driven by the increasing awareness of sustainability, stringent government regulations, and the rising demand for resource optimization. Food waste management involves the collection, treatment, recycling, and disposal of food waste generated at various stages of the food supply chain, including production, processing, distribution, and consumption.

Market Size and Trends:
Market size: The food waste management market has been steadily expanding, with estimates valuing it at several billion dollars globally.
Growth trajectory: The market has witnessed steady growth, attributed to rising environmental concerns, increasing urbanization, and a shift toward sustainable waste management practices.
Regional variations: Different regions exhibit varied food waste management practices due to diverse cultural, economic, and regulatory factors.
Market segmentation: The market is segmented based on waste type, process, application, and end-user industries.

Key Factors Driving the Market:
Regulatory Landscape: Stringent regulations and government initiatives worldwide aimed at reducing food wastage and promoting sustainable waste management practices are significant drivers of market growth.
Environmental Awareness: Growing environmental consciousness among consumers, businesses, and governments has led to increased efforts to minimize food waste and implement eco-friendly disposal methods.
Technological Advancements: Innovations in waste treatment technologies, including anaerobic digestion, composting, and biogas production, have bolstered the market growth by offering efficient and sustainable solutions.
Resource Optimization: The focus on resource optimization and the utilization of food waste for energy production, composting, and animal feed applications has contributed to market expansion.
Rising Demand for Organic Fertilizers: The demand for organic fertilizers derived from food waste is on the rise due to their eco-friendly nature and benefits for soil health.

Challenges and Opportunities:
Infrastructure and Investment: Insufficient infrastructure and high initial investment costs for advanced waste treatment technologies pose challenges for market growth.
Behavioural Changes: Changing consumer behaviour and encouraging businesses to adopt waste reduction practices remain pivotal challenges.
Innovation and Collaboration: Opportunities lie in fostering collaborations among stakeholders, investing in R&D, and promoting innovative solutions for efficient waste management.
Emerging Markets: Untapped markets in developing regions present significant growth opportunities for companies engaged in food waste management.
Key Players and Competitive Landscape:
The food waste management market is highly competitive, with several established and emerging players striving to develop sustainable solutions. Key players include waste management companies, technology providers, recycling firms, and organizations specializing in waste-to-energy conversion.
Food Waste Management Market: COVID-19 Outbreak
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused extensive disturbances throughout the food system, affecting every aspect from production to consumption. It has resulted in severe food shortages in certain instances while in others, food fails to reach end consumers and ends up being wasted. While food waste isn't a novel issue in our current food system, the widespread visuals and reports of entire fields being discarded and millions of gallons of milk being disposed of during a period of economic hardship and increased food insecurity raise significant concerns regarding the pandemic's impact on food waste along the supply chain.

Food Waste at the Producer Level
At the farm level, food waste commonly stems from market forces like price fluctuations, high labor costs, or insufficient labor availability. Additionally, products failing to meet specific aesthetic standards for buyers, particularly in grocery retail and foodservice sectors, or damage from weather and pests contribute to waste. During the COVID-19 crisis, these factors continued to contribute to wastage. However, another unforeseen factor significantly escalated waste for certain growers: those specializing in foodservice sector production.

The food supply chain is intricate and specialized, especially for perishable products such as meat, milk, fruits, and vegetables. Producers often grow their crops tailored specifically for either grocery retail or foodservice sectors. Each sector has distinct buyer specifications. For instance, fresh produce intended for foodservice buyers often requires bulk packaging, while grocery retailers necessitate individualized packaging. Moreover, for field crops, planting occurs well in advance of harvest, making mid-season production adjustments challenging when demand disruptions arise. Livestock operations face similar challenges, as animals do not cease growth or production. Therefore, producers largely dependent on the foodservice sector experienced substantial increases in food waste due to COVID-19.

Several examples illustrate this:

Illustration 1: Milk – With the temporary closure of major dairy buyers like schools and coffee shops across the country during the pandemic, the dairy industry faced surplus milk. Inability to locate alternative buyers led farmers to dispose of substantial excess milk as cows cannot cease production abruptly. Limited processing capacity and cold storage prevented rapid conversion of surplus milk into longer-shelf-life products like cheese.

Illustration 2: Chicken – Unlike milk, chicken producers encountered no difficulty finding buyers. However, the challenge emerged during processing. Meat processing plants, due to close proximity among workers, experienced COVID-19 outbreaks, resulting in reduced labor and slower output. Some chicken farmers found it uneconomical to raise the anticipated quantity of chickens, leading to the euthanization of birds.
Illustration 3: Onions – Approximately 40% of onions produced in the US are destined for restaurants. Although home cooking increased during the pandemic, consumer demand failed to match that of restaurant buyers, particularly for large, mild onions intended for restaurant dishes like onion rings.

Food Waste at the Processor Level
Processors are typically efficient in minimizing food waste by repurposing any waste or trimmings for other products such as animal feed or bioenergy.

COVID-19 significantly affected food processing facilities, particularly meat processors, witnessing outbreaks among workers, limiting processing capacity in some plants and resulting in temporary closures in others. However, the impact on waste at processing facilities remains minimal. Reductions in processing capacity are less likely to cause waste at the processor level; instead, producers are more prone to waste as they struggle to transport products from farms to processing facilities, as evidenced in the chicken production example.

Food Waste at the Foodservice Level
The foodservice sector generates waste in both its back-of-house (kitchen waste) and front-of-house (plate waste) operations. Despite efforts in careful planning and inventory management, the sudden closure of restaurants during COVID-19 likely increased short-term food waste. As restaurants reopened, uncertainty surrounding consumer demand for dine-in or take-out services might have contributed to waste, albeit potentially lower than the initial shock of business closures.

Food Waste at the Retail Level
Food waste in grocery stores often stems from overstocking perishable items to ensure product variety for consumers and products reaching or nearing their shelf life.

During the pandemic's onset in the US, media outlets reported consistently on empty grocery store shelves. Initially, shortages of items like toilet paper, sanitizing wipes, meat, and eggs were evident. Household stockpiling behaviour possibly reduced overall food waste at the retail level. However, waste might have increased for pricier products (e.g., cuts of meat) as households affected by income reductions shifted to lower-cost alternatives.

Household-Level Food Waste
Households have historically been identified as the largest source of food waste in developed countries like the US. Factors contributing to household food waste include inadequate planning, confusion regarding date labels, and bulk purchasing.

Stockpiling, prevalent during COVID-19, is usually considered waste-inducing under normal circumstances due to mismanaged surplus food. However, amidst the pandemic, other factors might have reduced household food waste. For instance, rising unemployment might lead to less waste as it is positively related to income. Similarly, escalating food prices might also reduce waste across households. Overall, the pandemic's net effect on household food waste remains uncertain, with significant variations among households.

Efforts to Alleviate Food Waste During COVID-19
COVID-19 has undeniably impacted food waste along the supply chain. Stakeholders and policymakers have strived to identify pandemic pivots to mitigate food waste.

At the farm level, many farmers either donated or sold surplus products to food banks. However, this reallocation isn't always feasible, particularly for farmers facing operational losses as covering costs for harvest labor, packaging, and transportation to donate might deepen their debts. Other farmers resorted to direct-to-consumer sales through farmers' markets, CSAs, or online channels.

Additionally, the US Department of Agriculture initiated a food box program purchasing fresh produce, dairy, and meat products worth $3 billion, packaging them, and distributing them to families in need. While this aids in diverting farm-level food waste, critics argue that it is less efficient compared to expanding the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in providing essential food aid during the pandemic.

Policies were also enacted to assist producers primarily catering to the foodservice sector in making their products available in the grocery retail market. For instance, egg regulations were temporarily relaxed to allow the sale of breaker eggs intended for foodservice operations in the table egg market due to significant demand surges.

Conclusion
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the entire food supply chain, leading to increased food waste for some actors, especially producers strongly linked to the foodservice sector and foodservice operators facing abrupt closures. Others in the supply chain, such as processors and grocery retailers, likely did not experience such heightened waste. Household changes in food waste during COVID-19 hinge on several factors, including stockpiling behaviours, food inventory management skills, income reductions, and sensitivity to rising food prices.