- An estimated 1.3 billion tonnes of food, roughly 30 per cent of global production, is lost or wasted annually.
- The united Nations says this is enough to solve the current food crisis in the world.
Image: /ENOS TECHE
Kenya’s formal retailers have committed to heighten the quality of fresh foods sold across their outlets as they ramp up efforts to reduce food wastage.
According to the Retail Trade Association of Kenya (RETRAK), the country loses approximately 5.2 million tonnes annually to food waste.
Each individual is estimated to throw away nearly 100 kilograms of food every year, valued at a total of about Sh72 billion.
An estimated 1.3 billion tonnes of food, or roughly 30 per cent of global production, is lost or wastage annually.
The United Nations says this is enough to solve the current food crisis in the world.
Five years ago, UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) created a Global Community of Practice of Food Loss Reduction web portal that allows users to get information about ways of reducing waste.
Under the umbrella Retail Trade Association of Kenya (RETRAK), the players have moved to strengthen the requisition.
This is through handling storage and display processes, facilities, and resources using a mix of better standard operating procedures, quality management systems, and investments in basic fresh food testing equipment.
Image: HANDOUT
RETRAK chief executive Wambui Mbarire said retailers have identified food waste as a frivolous use of natural resources that drives up the cost of production, inflates food prices, and weakens the food supply chain.
The resultant food loss impacts food security, quality, safety and overall economic development.
"Food loss is of high importance in efforts to combat hunger, raise farmer incomes and improve the country’s overall food security situation," RETRAK says.
Speaking during a workshop organised by the retail sector lobby group, to discuss retail food loss and waste , Mbarire said retailers are continuously working to raise the standards of food accessed by consumers.
"This will see retailers collaborate with their fresh produce suppliers to institute more stringent quality management systems, detailed operating procedures, active product quality verification and continuous staff training," Mbarire said.
She further added that fresh food sections of retailers are some of the fastest growing offerings with rising demand, hence the need to create industry standards, facilities, and skill sets that are necessary to sustain the suppliers by reducing food wastage.
Each outlet will analyze its data to identify how much fresh food is wasted, where and when the waste occurs, and come up with solutions.
The retailer says a review of the public health Act would also be essential, as it gives no guidelines on how unsold safe food coming out of Supermarkets and other eateries can be handled in a beneficial way.
A review of the Act will seek to establish legislation that gives retailers and suppliers a leeway to donate and process unsold fresh foods through creative value addition.
The Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) had earlier warned that food shortage crisis around the globe will go beyond 28 years from now if wastage surged.
It advocated for an increase in food production by approximately 60 per cent, to tame the looming crisis.
Globally, about 9.5 billion people are expected to be fed by 2050, according to the agency.
In Kenya, the population has since grown from eight million in 1960 to over 53 million in 2021.
This is a 577.2 per cent growth in 61 years with the highest increase recorded in 1982 with 3.94 per cent growth.
Although, since then the growth rate has been decreasing with the latest annual growth rate being at 2.28 per cent.
The growing population is said to pose considerable pressure on food, rendering most of the population hungry.
Kenya, Just Like its neighbours in the horn of Africa, is experiencing extreme drought conditions which is a threat to food production.
This has seen almost 3.5 million people in the country face severe hunger.
The latest World Bank Pulse shows one out of every three households in Kenya sleeps hungry due to the high cost of living.
It further indicates that the share of households unable to access staple food in the country has increased to 36 per cent from November last year to March this year.
It is on this backdrop that the UN food agency called on the world to reinvent ways to feed its populations sustainably with the available resources.
It proposes a reduction of food wastage as a way of fighting hunger, with Rockefeller saying that one-third of all food produced is never consumed.
About 1.2 billion people go to bed hungry or under-nourished, and global economic losses amount into trillions.
“The way we produce, process, distribute, and consume our food at certain levels has turned out to be wasteful,” UN says.
Food wastage could be occasioning the lack of access to the basic commodity by most vulnerable people.
Access has been termed key in combating hunger since most often, the reason people are undernourished is that they cannot grow enough food for themselves or do not have enough money to buy it.
UN notes that intervening against hunger at the global level is important, the globe must also act powerfully with systems at the local level to tame wastage and offer access.