There’s a kernel of wisdom in that old parental admonition: clean your dinner plate because there are children starving in Africa. By 2050, we’ll need to increase world food production by about 70% to feed an estimated 9 billion people, according to a recent report by the Food and Agriculture Organization.
Yet what’s rarely discussed is that more than a third of the food produced in the world – 1.3 billion tons per year – never finds its way into anyone’s stomach. It can rot in the field, go bad during processing, spoil at the grocery store or get tossed in the garbage by the consumer. For food producers, processors and manufacturers with the foresight and ingenuity to tackle this problem, there is more than a cautionary tale here – there is real business opportunity.