Global agrifood company, Simplot and End Food Waste Australia have been working on a series of food waste reduction initiatives including an Australian first on-farm potato loss measurement project and food waste profiling. Simplot was the first company to sign up to the Australian Food Pact in 2021.
Each year, Simplot sources more than 435,000 tonnes of potatoes and vegetables from Australian growers, playing a vital role in delivering locally grown produce to Australian consumers.
It makes some of Australia’s most recognised retail and foodservice brands including Birds Eye, Edgell, John West and Leggo’s.
The challenge
Tackling food waste on farms is essential to achieving sustainability goals and enhancing the efficiency of the agricultural sector.
Following a Walk the Chain workshop with the Australian Food Pact team—an initiative that evaluates food waste across the entire supply chain, Simplot recognised the importance of a data-driven approach to managing on-farm waste.
Embracing the Australian Food Pact’s philosophy of “what gets measured, gets managed,” Simplot were interested in minimising food waste at the source. With harvesting from over 5,500 hectares of potato land in Tasmania, Simplot wanted to quantify their potato crop losses, improve data accuracy and ultimately find new opportunities for on-farm food waste reduction.
The process
In an Australian first, Simplot partnered with Melissa Smith, technical account manager and Horticulture lead at End Food Waste Australia, to use the measurement technique of the WWF Global Farm Loss Tool (GFLT). This technique, developed by renowned expert Lisa K. Johnson focuses on food loss at the farm stage, defining ‘loss’ as any food produced for human consumption that, at some point, does not make it into or is removed from the human food supply chain.
While the sampling process was simple, there was a significant level of coordination required due to the narrow window of time post-harvest and before grazing, as well as the variety of growing areas involved.
With the support of their Field Services Officers and RMCG Consulting, Simplot sampled eight paddocks across three distinct growing areas, including surface and subsurface potatoes.
The measurement process produced on-farm loss data in three categories:
- Marketable – can be processed as met the required specification;
- Edible – unable to be processed as did not meet the specifications, such as undersized or oversized; and
- Inedible – diseased or rotten.
Simplot director of Global Food Sustainability, Phoebe Dowling, said, “Simplot is committed to taking action to reduce food waste as we know it has the potential to financially benefit manufacturers and farmers, help to alleviate pressure on natural resources like water, reduce GHGs, and help to address food insecurity.”
The outcome
Simplot found that 3-4 per cent of quality, marketable potatoes was being left in the field; reducing these losses could lead to a significant commercial value and provide a meaningful financial benefit to growers.
Addressing on-farm losses now forms part of Simplot’s future sustainability goals, and they plan to repeat the loss measurement exercise for the potato harvest in 2025 to validate the results. Along with increasing the number of paddocks sampled and sampling across a longer harvest period, Simplot will also undertake a root cause analysis to better understand the contributing factors resulting in the potato loss.
Simplot director of Raw Procurement – APAC, Les Murdoch, said, “The on-farm crop loss measurement exercise was well worth doing for our business as the results demonstrated that there is a real opportunity to improve yield and get better value from our harvests.”
The results
Simplot remains committed to End Food Waste Australia’s goal of contributing to halving food waste by 2030. They continue to leverage the expertise and knowledge from the Australian Food Pact, improve internal design and reporting processes and use the annual Pact reporting outcomes to target food waste hotspots. Their focus continues to be on food waste prevention, re-purposing and maximising business value from each waste stream for their stakeholders and business.
Find out more about Simplot’s Sustainability initiatives here.
This article first appeared on End Food Waste Australia’s website.
