Category: Waste

1) Problem: Huge quantities of food are wasted before they even make it to grocery stores. “Wasting food is not only an inefficient use of ecosystem services [like water] and of the fossil-fuel based resources that go into producing them, but also a significant contributor to global warming. In the USA, organic waste is the second highest component of landfills, which are the largest source of methane emissions” – UNEP

2) Summary 

Technology Can Help Reduce Food Waste. Forbes.

Company website.

• Intelleflex, a California-based company, uses a system with RFID tags and a cellular reader with a GPS device to help identify produce that might not be getting moved quickly enough.
• Tags record temperature and time data that is immediately sent to a cloud-based network.
• Allows companies to better manage reduce and gauge the shelf-life of food – “Tomatoes sitting in the sun on the runway for hours should be sold before those that sat inside the cool airport before being loaded onto the plane.”
• The tags are reusable and cost less than $1 per use or less, and will better insure that produce worth hundreds of dollars reaches consumers in time.
• System does not require expensive software to run and makes the data available to producers via the cloud.

3) Stakeholders

• Intelleflex
• Growers
• Distributors
• Consumers
• Grocers
• NGOs
• Waste managers

4) Deployment

• Collect data on most wasteful regions/sectors/companies
• Work with governments in large farming communities to incentivize the use of this technology amongst most wasteful constituents
• Analyze effectiveness and make any improvements
• Expand use of technology