Businesses as a response to Indonesia’s emergency food waste problem

Journalist: Noverius Laoli | Editor: Noverius Laoli

medialnews – JAKARTA. It is nothing new that Indonesia is one of the largest producers of waste in the world. However, not many people know that from 100% of this waste, 44% of it is food waste. In fact, based on FAO data, a third of food ends up being waste.

Therefore, it is not surprising that the Economic Intelligence Unit registers Indonesia as the second largest producer of food waste in the world, with a total food waste of 300 kg / year per capita. This is very sad considering that Indonesia’s hunger index is 19.9 and is in the “Almost Severe” category.

Other data from the UNEP Food Waste Index in 2021 shows that the amount of food waste in the world reached 931 million tonnes in 2019. Ironically, the Covid-19 pandemic has increased the number of malnutrition between 83 and 123 million people. And 6.7 million of them are acutely malnourished children.

In contrast, the Indonesian government remains optimistic about reducing waste with a target of 30% and 70% by 2025, including food waste. In fact, reducing food waste is one of the priorities of RPJMN 2020-2024, as reported by representatives of Medrilzam, environmental director of BAPPENAS.

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According to representatives of Anang Nugroho, director of food and agriculture of BAPPENAS, in more detail, horticultural products, especially vegetables, are the biggest contributor to food waste in Indonesia, which must retain the Warning.

Recognizing this, the IBCSD and WRAP have launched an initiative based on a voluntary agreement, whereby companies can participate in the engagement and start calculating and analyzing their respective food losses and losses. Indeed, one of the good solutions to tackle the problem of food waste is to involve the private sector.

Based on the presentation at the discussion titled “Business Actions to Overcome Food Shrinkage and Waste in Indonesia” held by the Indonesian Business Council for Sustainable Development (IBCSD) on April 29, 2021, only 11.5% food waste has been produced during consumption to treat. Meanwhile, the production process contributed 23.5% of food loss and waste, then post-harvest storage contributed 24.4%, the manufacturing process 20.3% and distribution 20.3%. This means that businesses have a very big role to play in solving this problem.

“The IBCSD intends to launch voluntary agreement-based initiatives to overcome the problem of food loss and waste in Indonesia. We believe that this issue has become the concern of many parties. It is therefore not a question of reinventing the wheel program, but of supporting and improving existing initiatives at global and national level ”, said Thursday (29/4) Yono Reksoprodjo, Executive Committee of the IBCSD.

Interestingly, mapping and reducing waste and waste loss in a trade chain will not only benefit the environment and help achieve government goals.

WRAP’s Director of Global Partnerships, Michael Jones, provides a clear example of how UK companies implementing food loss and food loss reduction in their businesses have succeeded in reducing previously unseen costs and delivering significant benefits to the company. Another good news is that businessmen interested in this initiative can join the voluntary agreement initiated by the IBCSD.

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