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The problem of food losses is widely presented all over the world. According to research of independent analytical center TIAR, the worldwide production of food is 3,9 billion tons, while global food waste is 1,3 billion tons. According to same research, each 1 million ton of saved food is a possibility to supply 1,3 million people who are needed in it, ability to decrease emissions of methane in the atmosphere by 143 thousand tones and gain almost 1-billion-euro profits by selling nearly expiring products. As it is presented, problem is worth dealing with, optimization and decrease of food waste can bring immense advantages and possibility to achieve sustainable development goals. Food sharing can become a tool of reasonable distribution food between people as well as possibility to decrease amount of food waste by 30% and solve some environmental problems.
So, there are some ways how technology can help society to achieve aimed goals in that sphere.
Firstly, development of services which are aimed to decrease market inefficiencies. The example of it is a Japan food-sharing app called Tabete which was launched in Tokyo in 2018. Via this service you can cheaply by products which are close to be discarded or made of surplus ingredients which are left. The mission of a service is “to make everyone happy by making it user-friendly, shop-friendly, and environment-friendly”. This app works with nearly 600 restaurants, cafes, and bakeries. This service enabled people to support their favorite companies during pandemic and decrease losses connected with lack of tourists.
Secondly, cooperation of services with supermarkets and shops. For example, collaboration of German services foodsharing.de and lebensmittelretten.de enabled people to share food with each other and cooperate with supermarkets and shops. The collaboration was successful as the number of users increased in 4 times after that.
Thirdly, creation of user-friendly app. For example, British service Olio with nearly 2,3 million users helps people to share food as well as other goods. This app has a huge number of features such as own ecosystem, user-friendly interface and cooperation with many producers made it the most popular food sharing platform in US and UK.
Fourthly, spread the ideas of food sharing and reasonable consumption via educational and entertaining content. For example, Spanish food sharing service Yonodesperdicio created in 2015 provides users with online webinars, educational videos and masterclasses related to the topic. They also actively take part in popularizing ideas of food sharing at schools. The Awareness Officer, Laure Martos, is convinced that lack of knowledge of people towards this problem is the main target for the company to fight with: “citizens are not aware of the environmental, economic and social impact that food waste generates. Raising awareness of this issue will contribute to responsible and conscious decisions.”
According to Sharecity, a project which is aimed to find out sustainable potential referred to food sharing withing cities, Top three cities with active food sharing projects are Melbourne (149 projects), New-York (164 projects) and London (180 projects).
Sources:
http://foodtank.com/news/2019/09/spains-first-food-sharring-app-is-tackling-food-waste/
Concepts
http://trends.rbc.ru/trends/sharing/5f7ae8d79a7947d0cef61d7c
Food sharing service “TABETE” in Japan
We can also educate people in Africa e.g. how to use drop method, whilst watering the plants.