Remember all of the buzz around the $900-million-dollar Power Ball lottery in January? Americans were scrambling to buy tickets, even though their odds of winning were 1 in 175 million. A much easier way for Americans to add billions to their bottom line would be to stop food waste.

$165 billion dollars. That’s the estimated value of the food wasted in the U.S. every year. Did you know that food waste is directly related to something called “food insecurity”? Today food insecurity exists in every county, in every state. Just last year, 12.7 percent of all U.S. households were food insecure. That means roughly 1 in 7 households lack access to enough food for their entire family, and more people rely on food banks to meet their nutritional needs. One study found that reducing food waste by only 20% would be enough to feed 25 million Americans every year.

From farmers to retailers to working families, everyone plays a role in the food waste crisis. This post will explain how efficient supply chain management and compliance programs can prevent food waste before food even reaches the consumer.

Food Waste Along the Supply Chain

Food typically travels through four stages before reaching consumer’s tables:

1. Post-Harvest
2. Processing and Production
3. Distribution
4. Retail Locations

At each step, there are areas of opportunity in facility updates, procedures, and compliance that can help reduce food waste.

Improper Storage – Temperature and humidity are the Holy Grail of food waste prevention. All foods have an optimal temperature and humidity. For instance, potatoes prefer 42-50 degrees and 90-95% humidity, and lettuce needs 32 degrees and 95-100% humidity. One of the easiest ways to reduce food waste is to make sure all foods are stored in their optimal zones. To do this, it’s critical to have regular compliance audits. If a refrigerator is too warm, a compliance audit will alert you to this error – before the entire crop of lettuce turns into a pile of mold. Another consideration for proper storage is vermin control. A compliance audit should be performed regularly to ensure that your vermin control program meets food safety standards. Proper temperature, humidity, and vermin controls, coupled with regular compliance audits, can prevent food damage and loss.

Processing and Production – Processing and production is the most complex stage of the food chain with many opportunities for food waste: strict quality control standards, incorrect production estimates, processing malfunctions, spillage, and improper packaging. Compliance audits during production can help prevent waste. For instance, if a labeler is creating crooked labels, it could be because the machine has not been serviced recently. Regular equipment audits can prevent equipment malfunctions – thus preventing the need to toss all product with crooked labels. Auditing everything from manufacturing staff training to packaging equipment on a regular basis can prevent food waste throughout this stage.

Distribution – The cold chain is another challenging aspect of the food supply chain. Temperature control is vital for keeping food products at optimal – and safe – zones. Refrigerated trucks need regular maintenance to ensure they are operating in the safe zone. Optimal temperatures keep food safe, reduce food spoilage, and make trucks run more efficiently. As in the storage stage, routine temperature audits coupled with corrective action management can fix problems before inventory spoils.

Retail Locations – Surprisingly, the bulk of waste occurs once food hits the store shelves. The reason for this is complex. First, consumers demand perfection so retailers toss any produce or product that is dented, bruised, or misshapen. Other reasons include discarding products with expired “sell by” dates (even though they are arbitrary dates), overstocking of promotional items, creating ready-to-eat food up until closing time, and having warm coolers. Compliance programs can help in all of these areas. Training programs teach staff proper handling techniques to avoid damaging products. Corrective Action Management of training programs ensures all staff members are up-to-date on the latest training. As with every other step of the supply chain, audits can be used to test the temperature of in-store coolers.

1.3 Billion Tons of Food Waste

RizePoint’s software provides customizable audit forms to meet any retailer’s quality and safety compliance needs. Improper temperature, mislabeled dates, or old machinery all cause food damage. Compliance audits can prevent all of those issues and help reduce the staggering 1.3 billion tons of waste throughout the food supply chain. A strict audit protocol – of everything from temperature to tamper labels – will help reduce food waste. It’s up to every business to make reducing food waste a top priority, for the people, for the planet, and for their profits.

At RizePoint, we’re compliance and protocol experts.