Even as a full-on food crisis is affecting underdeveloped and developing countries around the world, one-third of global food production gets wasted. According to the Food Waste Index Report 2021 released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), 17% of total food available globally to consumers in 2019 went into waste bins. Most of this waste comes from households. In India, an average household generates 50 kg of waste per person per year compared to 85 kg in France, 77 kg in the United Kingdom (UK), 100 kg in Israel and 189 kg in Nigeria. These statistics are damning at a time when millions of people and livestock often go hungry.
Besides, food waste also directly contributes to climate change. It creates greenhouse gases when dumped in landfills or burned down. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, if the food industry was a country, it would be the third-highest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHG) behind the United States of America (USA) and China. Meanwhile, if we stopped wasting food altogether, we would eliminate 8-10 per cent of the planet's total emissions.
On this World Environment Day, The Free Press Journal had a chat with Saket Dave who is on a mission to eliminate commercial food waste. In 2018, he started Wastelink, a tech-enabled B2B food waste management platform striving to build sustainable food to feed ecosystem for the country. Keeping sustainability at the core, the startup helps food manufacturers and retailers prevent food waste by transforming their surplus and rejects into nutritious animal feed.
Saket Dave |
What is Wastelink? How does it operate?
Wastelink is a food waste upcycling company. We help food producers, food manufacturers — large FMCG brands or local food producers — manage the excess surplus or rejects that comes during their supply chain. So, we collect food waste, pay for it and use it to prepare feed for animals.
Getting started
The idea goes 10 years back. I was first exposed to the problem when I was in university. I got my friends together and we set up a small composting unit for the university. It really got me introduced to the whole topic, the problems and the technologies out there. Later, I worked with the British Council on implementing community-led projects for the next 5-6 years. This made me realise that to implement all these different solutions the waste generator has to either buy a biogas unit or a composting unit, all of which is costly and not very exciting. We then understood the need to have a solution that does not burden them with costs and later figured out a business model that could make it easier for the food producer, in fact, to pay them for the waste and use it to create upcycling solutions.
Revenue model
We break down our food supplier segment into four categories — packaged food and retail waste, farm and agriculture waste, meat processing waste and hospitality and food services waste. Today, we are primarily focused on packaged food and retail. We work with food brands like Nestle and ITC and help them manage food waste in their supply chain. Going forward, we are looking to expand in other categories as well.
Statistics
Since Wastelink's inception, we have processed more than 5,000 metric tonnes of food waste. In doing so, we have prevented more than 12,000 metric tonnes of GHG emissions annually. Meanwhile, from this year onwards, we will be processing 5,000 metric tonnes per year.
The Team
We are a team of 100 people. I am joined by my co-founder Krishnan Kasturirangan, who left his corporate job and decided to work with me full-time. Our team comes from the logistics industry, food manufacturing industry, animal nutrition industry, etc. We have four units across India in Delhi, Lucknow, Mumbai and Bengaluru.
Future plans
We are in the process of processing 3,000 metric tonnes of food waste monthly, which is about 36,000 metric tonnes annually. So, this year our objective is to upcycle 36,000 metric tonnes of food waste into animal feed. After two years, we wish to upcycle at least a million metric tonnes of food waste into animal feed.
Are the governments across the world doing enough to save the environment?
The governments play an important role but businesses and individuals also must make a valuable contribution. For example, food waste is not a problem caused by governments. When we go to a local mandi to buy tomatoes, we'll surely pick the nice ones and not the ones which are slightly yellow; this is the food waste that we are generating. So, it's a systematic problem. The governments, of course, can bring in stricter policies and provide incentives to recycling businesses. The government can definitely do a lot of things but solving the problem goes way beyond them.
World Environment Day message
This is an important day for all of us to reflect and ponder upon really significant environmental issues like land degradation, food waste, etc. We must read and try to understand the gravity of the situation and manage our natural resources carefully.
