OUR STORY
“There is food for everyone on this planet, but not everyone eats.” – Carlo Petrini
If you have ever tossed a plate of food out of anger, then the Italian activist, Carlo Petrini is right. The quote does not fit with your anger issues, but with your ignorance towards food. For every food, you waste at your dining table, there is a person out there craving for the same. And if you are wondering which food is the most thrown away and wasted, then welcome to the world of bread.
The most wasted food product in the Netherlands comes from none other than the bakery industry. NRC Handelsblad in a 2019 article confirmed that people waste around 25% of bread (including other dough products) in the Netherlands!
Now ask yourself one question; Why are bakery products the most wasted food products in the Netherlands?
This question is the first step toward the prevention of bakery waste. Taking an example of bread, pieces of bread are lost on three levels,
First, while producing in industrial bakeries as producing bread causes a great loss of dough products in a surplus amount.
Secondly, while distributing (or retail) almost 3%-7% of pieces of bread are lost.
Thirdly, and most concerning the level of bread loss is on the consumer level, which is nearly about 18%!
These levels might seem insignificant to you, but believe us, these contribute to a worldwide food loss every year! With this much bakery product lost every year, the same amount can feed innumerable people in a country.
Causes for such huge losses in the bakery industry;
The levels mentioned above surely come with their drawbacks. For instance, if a loaf of bread is not of the right size, the producers might deem it unfit for sale and hence human consumption, the same goes for if it is impaired with a different dough.
Next, if you remember the last time you went to buy bread, you probably asked the shopkeeper to give you a fresh one. So, this way, often yesterday’s bread is wasted regularly. Don’t worry we are not telling you to buy foul bread! We are coming to this soon.
Also, people’s demand for bread keeps on changing daily. Sometimes when the consumers cancel an order that becomes another reason for bread waste. This happens since most of the time, bakeries don’t acquire the ways to gather or access the required data to predict exactly as some of the advanced ones do. All these causes lead to uncountable wastage in bakery industry.
The aftermath of wasting bread and plans of the bakery industry in the Netherlands to tackle it;
The moment fresh bread is packaged or wrapped the sweet smell of that bread is lost. And since every product has an expiry date, people don’t buy it if the expiry date is near. This way every piece of bread goes into the dumpster. When we throw food into the dumpster, the food begins to decay and releases methane gas. Methane is a greenhouse gas that excels 25 times more than CO2 in trapping heat in the atmosphere. Hence, methane gas is more effective in leading to climate change than CO2. In short, only one person from each region has to take little or no pain to waste a loaf of bread. Whereas many people have to take great pains just to produce and reach the loaves of bread to the consumers every day.
So is there no way we can reuse expired bread? Yes, there is! These wasted loaves of bread can be used to grow lactic acid bacteria and then used to produce vegetable fermentation, sourdough, wine, etc.
Another way that many bakery industries and also small businesses have started implementing is donating leftover slices of bread. The donation of surplus loaves to different organizations benefits both parties, in terms of managing bread waste, feeding the ones in need, and protecting the environment as well. One act serves three purposes!
How can consumers help bakeries overcome this wastage issue?
Now, remember we told you about the foul bread thing? Well, no doubt, consumers play a huge role in contributing to bakery waste. In the same way, consumers can and do play a vital task in preventing bakery waste too. Suppose you bought bread two days ago and now it has expired. In this case, you can contact various organizations that use expired products for other purposes as mentioned above.
Another way of preventing bread waste is consuming bread on time. This is the simplest yet most ignored prevention method, no matter where you buy the bread.
Bakeli’s way of controlling food waste;
Our team, Bakeli, has come up with a pre-order theme. This theme helps us to plan the steps of food management correctly. It is done in such a way that our users keenly implement the ideas at home, restaurants, bakeries, etc., and make it part of their lifestyle.
The pre-order option provides producers and bakeries with a good idea of the number of ingredients needed to prepare the dish. On the customer side, this option plays a fair role in buying fresh products and avoiding wasting food. Every step performed by both the provider and the consumer ensures a clean and secure environment.
There are many ways to deal with food waste, but you need to be patient and considerate enough to protect the environment. We are only part of nature. Therefore, if the environment is damaged, it can have a serious impact on us as well. Let's look carefully into the future so that we can leave it for future generations and participate in this fight against food waste. Bakeli has already taken a small step to combat this fight against food waste. You should buckle up too!
