“It will cry after you.” (a saying used where I come from)
This is what in Turkey (or at least 50% of us) we heard during our childhood when we did not want to finish our food: “The food left in the plate was gonna cry after us.”
Well, there is a situation of crying indeed. But is that the food in the plate?
I wish so, but no.
According to the World Food Programme, 815 million people — one in nine — go to bed hungry every night.
It is not a meat, nor a veggie, nor a fruit that cries. It is a mother, a father, a child, a friend, a stranger, a human being who cries everyday around the world.
I am pretty sure all of you already knew about this reality, but maybe are surprised by the number. Let’s see something more surprising.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization demonstrate that roughly one-third of food produced in the world for human consumption every year — approximately 1.3 billion tonnes — is wasted or lost.
A BILLION? 😲 Much more than the people who go to bed hungry?
Am I correct to understand that we produce enough food for everyone in the world, but we cannot deliver it properly?
Let’s try to understand how this is possible..
Who to blame?
- A child who does not like the veggies in the plate?
- A mom who has forgotten the existence of yoghurt in the fridge?
- A friend who has burnt that delicious lasagna?
- A supermarket that had full of unsold milks?
- Supply chains that get rid of spinach immediately because it did not meet the certain quality criteria?
- Inadequate logistics that could not transfer the unused products to relevant buyers?
The list can be longer but the answer is shorter:
ALL OF US!
90 per cent of consumers in the United States throw food away too soon simply due to misinterpreting labels, demonstrating an over-reliance on labels that are outdated, confusing and misleading.
So, what can we do to reduce this number?
Is there any super duper solution?
What if I told you that there is something that would make:
- Producers and retailers to track and monitor food shipments, and therefore make more efficient decisions on time.
- Consumers to see where the food is coming from, where and in what condition it is produced, and therefore make them not have misinterpretations.
- Unused products to be transferred to new and more relevant buyers.
Nope, there is no new super hero in the town that you haven’t heard of. That is the Blockchain! ⛓
It enables each stake holder in supply chain, including consumers, to track the every stage of production and cause all those awesome things I mentioned above to happen. In short, Blockchain forces all stakeholders to be transparent, efficient, and sustainable.
How the Blockchain works in food industry?
Companies such as OriginTrail, VeChain Foundation and Waltonchain_EN are actively working on blockchain solutions addressing missing transparency in the supply chain industry. Walmart Labs has recently awarded an European company OriginTrail for its blockchain supply chain protocol which, in essence, enables customers to verify the provenance of every item sold and the local retailers to ensure the origin’s compliance .
Let’s make the food industry great for the first and all the time! 💪🏼
If you are interested in to learn how Blockchain can affect the fashion industry, be sure to check out my previous post: Blockchain is to bring the fashion supply chain to its right way!.
