Whole of meat supply chain waste mapping and interventions – Phase 1

The challenge

Knowledge about food losses and waste in Australian meat supply chains has been patchy to date. Some data and insights can be drawn from Australia’s National Food Waste Baseline (FIAL, 2021), from an industry study focused on the cold chain (Brodribb and McCann, 2020), and from work in the UK (WRAP, 2020). But we don’t currently have a comprehensive picture of the scale and causes of meat losses, particularly for production processes upstream of retail. This makes it difficult to plan and prioritise the meat sector’s food waste reduction efforts under Australia’s Food Waste Reduction Strategy. We know that the volumes of meat losses are lower than other food types, but that the financial value and greenhouse gas implications of the losses are potentially high. This provides incentive to identify and prioritise the loss reduction, which can accrue value for the sector economically and socially.

Our plan

To achieve this, a “whole of supply chain waste mapping and resource efficiency” process will be conducted, guided by the UK’s Waste Resource Action Program (WRAP, 2020). It focuses on upstream processes stages of the beef supply chain only (meat processing, value adding, and the cold chain distribution up to the retail door). Project activities will include mapping Australian beef supply chains and gathering estimates of loss quantities, root cause analysis and solution ideation in workshops with supply chain actor, and estimating the true cost of beef losses to inform solution prioritisation. The outcome will be information to substantial a more complete picture of meat losses in Australian beef supply chain to feed into the meat industry’s Sector Action Plan.