Background
In 2019, CyberColloids commenced a yearlong EPA funded Green Enterprise project BIOSCOPE – Scoping potential food waste in the Irish fruit & vegetable supply chain. The study aimed to: (i) scope the extent to which fruit & vegetables were lost or wasted from the food supply chain in Ireland; (ii) identify current strategies and barriers for disposal and/or reuse, (iii) screen targeted resources for potential upgrade into new food fibre ingredients and (iv) offer recommendations to the Irish industry to aid in developing waste management and sustainability programmes.
Outcomes
An estimated of 300,000 to 360,000 tonnes of key fruit & vegetable crops was lost/wasted in the pre-consumer stages of the supply chain in 2018. Of this, over 200,000 tonnes was of potatoes alone. A further 40,000 to 60,000 of imported fruit & vegetables was also lost/wasted. Thus, in any one year, an estimated 45% to 75% of vegetables and up to 25% of fruit crops is potentially wasted from the pre-consumer stages of the Irish supply chain.
35 different prototype food fibres were produced from key biomass types and evaluated as new food texture ingredients. Fibres derived from carrot, swede/turnip, broccoli, cauliflower, tomato, apple & strawberry demonstrated commercially interesting functionality when benchmarked against market available comparator products.
Overall, the project demonstrated that Ireland generates sufficient fruit & vegetable waste, in particular from carrot, potato, swede/turnip and apples, that could feed into one or more centrally located processing facilities to produce new food ingredients and reduce food loss/waste in the Irish industry.
More detail can be found in the following project reports: