Identifying Strategies for Reducing
Food Waste in NC Fresh Produce
Supply Chains
Eric Chappell, MEM/MBA ‘15
Advisor:
Dr. Daniel Vermeer, PhD,
Duke University
Masters project Submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the Master of Environmental Management
degree in the Nicholas School of the Environment of Duke
University
2015
Advisor Signature of Approval: ______________________________
Eric Chappell,
MEM/MBA, ‘15
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Advisor:
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In recent years, food waste has received an increasing amount of attention. Studies
point out that there is more than enough food to feed the world’s population, yet still
millions go hungry. Moreover, research has revealed that food waste is also a valuedestroying activity that represents a significant cost burden on companies. Realizing
this, producers, grocers and other large generators of food waste are searching for
alternate disposal strategies which can save them money while also reducing their
environmental footprint. In this light, the US Environmental Protection Agency
developed the Food Recovery Hierarchy, a tool which helps provide context and
suggestions for waste diversion.
This project specifically looks at one event in the agricultural supply chain- shipments of
fresh produce that have been rejected by the market. These rejections arise when there
is an over supply of produce or a buyer rejects a shipment because of quality concerns.
By scoping the issue within the framework of North Carolina, the issues, solutions and
recommendations for additional diversion opportunities are more specific and can exist
within a real world application.
Through a series of qualitative interviews linked together within a framework that
borrows from the grounded theory tradition, a number of success stories emerge.
Growers that have scale can take advantage of their size to diversify their business.
Fresh produce can be processed to increase its shelf life, turning fresh berries into
smoothies or a freezable paste. Growers can add livestock to their operations and divert
any waste they generate on their farm to their own stock, reducing the cost of feed.
Diversification can also benefit the waste diversion streams. Anaerobic digesters provide
renewable energy and heat while also generating compost, a natural pairing of diversion
activities.
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More importantly, these interviews identify barriers to increasing diversion beyond
current levels. Small- and medium-sized companies lack the time and capabilities to
craft complex waste diversion strategies. Increasing transportation costs mean that
producers of food waste are less incentivized to ship waste through diversion streams
that are more poorly distributed. This leads many of those who do divert waste to use
composting as a default diversion tactic, as it requires less time and expense to use a
single diversion stream.
State and local governments act as important players in increasing diversion activities. In
North Carolina, the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources works to
promote diversion activities in the state. Through programs such as NC Waste Trader,
the state can provide visibility for diversion activities and help reduce some of the
information barriers that come from a lack of scale.
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Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
INTRODUCTION
PROJECT OUTLINE
PURPOSE OF THE PROJECT
SUPPLY CHAINS FOR FRESH PRODUCE
AGRICULTURAL INPUTS
GROWER
PROCESSOR/PACKER
DISTRIBUTOR
RETAILER
FOOD WASTE
A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
A NATIONAL CONCERN
REDIRECTION OF WASTE
THE FOOD RECOVERY HIERARCHY AND BEYOND
SOURCE REDUCTION
FEED HUNGRY PEOPLE
CHARITABLE CAUSES
SALVAGE GROCERIES
FOOD PROCESSORS
FEED ANIMALS
INDUSTRIAL USES
COMPOSTING
ANAEROBIC DIGESTION
RECENT FOOD WASTE DIVERSION LITERATURE
HOW MUCH NORTH CAROLINA PRODUCE IS REJECTED?
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
PROJECT SCOPE
RESEARCH TRADITION
QUALITATIVE INTERVIEWS
INTERVIEWS
ANALYSIS
REJECTED SHIPMENTS: SUCCESS STORIES
REDUCING REJECTED SHIPMENTS AT THE SOURCE
CHARITIES OFFER A RISK-FREE MARKET FOR DIVERTED SHIPMENTS
FOOD LION: A BUSINESS APPLICATION OF THE FOOD RECOVERY HIERARCHY
HEALTHIER, TASTIER HOGS FOR ONLY PEANUTS A DAY
DIVERSIFICATION: AN IN-HOUSE OPPORTUNITY TO DIVERT FOOD WASTE
REJECTED SHIPMENTS: DISINCETIVES TO DIVERT
BARRIERS OF INFORMATION
TRANSPORTATION DIVIDES AND CONNECTS THE WASTE STREAMS
DECISIONS, DECISIONS: COMPOST BY DEFAULT
THE ROLE OF THE STATE: A VALUE CHAIN APPROACH
SUMMARY OF RESULTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
REPRESENTATIVE PRODUCE WASTE CHAINS
FOOD WASTE CHAMPIONS
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FOOD WASTE HUMANITARIANS
COMPOSTERS BY DEFAULT
ACHIEVING SCALE THROUGH COOPERATION
LOCAL AND STATE AGENTS OF CHANGE
SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
APPENDIX A: WASTE STREAMS QUESTIONNAIRE
APPENDIX B: STATE/LOCAL GOVERNMENTS QUESTIONNAIRE
WORKS CITED
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INTRODUCTION
Project Outline
The purpose of this project is to explore agricultural waste that occurs in fresh produce
supply chains. Specifically, this project will focus on fresh produce once it has been
rejected by a buyer or by the general marketplace. This rejection can occur for a
number of reasons: the produce might be below a buyers’ standards, it could be unfit
for human consumption, or can the produce go unclaimed because of there is a glut of
supply. While this rejection has historically led to the produce being discarded at a solid
waste disposal site such as a landfill, that is not always the case. Industries and markets
that provide value-creating diversion opportunities are starting to spring up and become
viable business models. To aid identifying these opportunities to divert food waste, the
US Environmental Protection Agency has even gone so far as to create a framework for
reducing food waste- The Food Recovery Hierarchy (“FRH” or “Hierarchy”) which
prioritizes providing the most of amount of nutritional value to humans – (“Resource
Conservation - Food Waste | Wastes | US EPA” 2015).
The Hierarchy provides a number of pathways that can be used to extract value and not
destroy it in a landfill. Still, produce waste (and food waste in general) persists. This
project seeks to understand what efforts are being taken to redirect waste and identify
barriers to expanding this redirection of waste from landfills to other, useful endeavors.
Before looking at where and how food waste happens, it’s important to understand the
system that creates food waste. By first presenting a representative agricultural supply
chain, I will more clearly contextualize fresh produce waste. Then, I will explore what
food waste looks like on a global and national level and delve into greater detail
explaining how the FRH is supposed to reduce the amount of food being reduced. Then,
by limiting the scope of the project to North Carolina, the solutions, problems and
research itself can be more targeted, the findings more specific than looking at the
international or national problem. Using North Carolina provides an excellent
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opportunity to examine produce waste through the FRH framework, for several reasons:
1) There is significant food waste occurring in North Carolina; 2) There already exists
some capacity for diversion of these waste streams to more valuable processes; and 3)
The state government is providing increased services for diverting of waste from
landfills. Using this framework, I will be answering the research question: What are the
successes and shortcomings of diverting rejected shipments of produce from landfills in
North Carolina and how do these efforts align with the Food Recovery Hierarchy? In
other words, what diversion activities are already occurring in North Carolina and what
barriers have keep diversions from being even more prevalent?
Purpose of the Project
This project is designed to shed light on the epidemic of food waste and why it is such a
difficult problem to abate. Food waste is a form of value destruction wherein a
commodity has been created for a purpose (providing nutrition to humans or animals)
but does not fulfill that goal. By better understanding why fresh produce waste persists
in North Carolina, as well as efforts being made to divert it, we can better understand
how this waste can be reduced.
SUPPLY CHAINS FOR FRESH PRODUCE
Before examining food waste in fresh produce supply chains, examining the structure of
agricultural supply chains provides important context for understanding how entire
shipments of produce can be rejected. While produce supply chains vary based on the
actual commodity and the distribution/packaging channels that a product must go
through to reach a consumer, they share some general characteristics. By limiting the
scope of the research and findings to be North Carolina specific, it removes much of this
deviation. The following is a representative supply chain for commercial fresh produce
in North Carolina (see figure 1):
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1. Growers make decisions on what and how to plant.
2. Produce is planted, grown and harvested.
3. The produce is packaged and/or processed
4. Distribution of produce to retailers, food service or institutions
5. Produce arrives at the end consumer
Figure 1: A representative agricultural supply chain for fresh produce. Some companies may be vertically
integrate to play more than one role in getting the commodity to market but most types of fresh produce follow
this basic pattern.
Agricultural Inputs
The first decisions in the produce supply chain define how the rest of the supply chain
evolves. A grower decides what crop to plant as well as what other additives (fertilizers,
compost, pesticides, etc) to add to the soil. Then they decide on a planting strategy, an
important decision from a food waste perspective because different types of produce
have very different spoilage rates. Potatoes, under normal conditions, will take weeks
to spoil, while berries will spoil much more quickly (Romine 2009). Further, the decision
to plant seeds that have been genetically modified, such as those that reduce the
release of polyphenol oxidase- a major cause of browning in produce- can also prolong
the life of produce (Jones 1999).
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Grower
Once the farmer has made a decision on what to grow and how to prepare the soil, they
choose the right way to water their produce, whether to apply additional pesticides and
how and when to harvest. Each can have dramatic effects on food waste in this stage.
Under-watering produce can cause the crops to wither and die, while both under- and
over-watering can both cause roots to rot in the fields (“Symptoms & Treatment of Root
Rot” 2015). Pesticides and fungicides are a common means for reducing the amount of
produce lost to harmful insects and fungi, respectively. Finally, harvesting too early may
mean that the produce never achieves a fully ripened state and doesn’t sell well;
harvesting too late may mean produce (and profits) rotting in the fields.
Processor/Packer
Processing and packaging can be done either at a separate facility or on the farms where
the produce is being grown. Depending on the crop and what its end use is, this will
mean different forms of processing. Cherries, for instance, are often packed on the farm
for shipment to a processing facility where they will be documented, cleaned, filled and
labeled for sale (“What We Do: The Process of Proceesing Cherries” 2015). For sweet
potatoes, however, the process is less involve. They only require washing, grading
(sorting by size and quality) and packaging (“Packing and Shipping” 2012).
Distributor
Once produce has been cleaned, trimmed, sorted and packaged for market, it goes
through a distribution channel. Many large supermarket and restaurant chains, such as
McDonalds, Harris Teeter or Whole Foods, will maintain their own distribution centers.
Harris Teeter for example, has three warehouses to handle distribution of its fresh
produce- Fredericksburg, VA, Greensboro, NC and Indian Trail, NC (“Harris Teeter Careers - Warehouse” 2015). Smaller grocers and retailers as well as food service
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purchasers such as restaurants, hospitals and other institutions don’t go through
produce nearly as quickly as grocers and it is therefore more cost effective to go through
a distributor who can aggregate dozens, even hundreds of types of produce in one
location and sell to their customers on a case or pallet basis. In general, fresh produce
and other more perishable foods typically go through fewer handling exchanges
(Beaman and Johnson 2006).
Retailer
Finally, the fresh produce finally finds itself on the supermarket shelves and restaurant
plates. The produce is no longer just a commodity but has reached the consumer and
instantly becomes much more personal. Regardless of how the food came to the
market, now the consumer becomes the ultimate decision maker on what is and what is
not up to their own quality standards.
These five stages of the fresh produce supply chain are linked together with a massive
transportation network. Depending on origin and destination, the go-to-market
strategy can be a mixture of freight, rail, water and air. Because air is much more costly
than most other methods, and water transport is much slower and limited by the need
for access to rivers, seas and oceans (Rodrigue and Notteboom 2015), much of the food
being transported in North Carolina is done by rail and freight. Larger grocers,
restaurant chains and distributors will often own their own fleets of trucks but the
trucking industry as a whole is going through a period of significant contraction,
meaning that it is increasingly harder to get fresh produce from one location to another
(“Driver Issues May Hurt Trucking Industry Growth in 2015” 2015). Understanding the
market structure and interactions within the supply chain is critical to understanding
global, national and local drivers of food waste.
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FOOD WASTE
A Global Perspective
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, nearly 870 million
people worldwide are suffering from “chronic” undernourishment (The State of Food
Insecurity in the World 2012). That’s one in every eight people alive in 2012. The
majority, 539 million, is found in the developing nations of Asia, with Africa in a distant
second with 239 million. Perhaps more alarming than the number of hungry people in
Africa is the trend on that continent- the number of hungry people has risen by 2%
annually since 2007. While the African trend is troubling, the oddest trend may be the
number of people in developed countries who lack sufficient nourishment. While less
common than Africa or Asia, the number actually grew from 13 million in 2004-2006 to
around 16 million in 2010-2012 (Ibid). This hunger is despite the planet producing more
than enough sustenance for everyone on Earth. Current estimates suggest enough food
is being produced to provide every man, woman and child with 2,720 kilocalories per
day. Making food waste all the more frustrating, it is also estimated to contribute 3.3
Gigatons of atmospheric COs annually, hastening climate change ((Jan et al. 2013).
Figure 2: A basic
framework for
understanding the
sources of food waste in
agricultural supply chains
(Source: Lundqvist, et. al,
2008)
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While it is difficult to accept the number of people worldwide who go hungry- given that
there is sufficient nutrition for them being produced- it’s even more baffling when
paired with the amount of food that the world wastes. While estimates vary
significantly, the most commonly cited statistics for global food waste are from the
Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI). In 2008, researchers from SIWI
estimated global food waste at around 50% (Lundqvist, de Fraiture, and Molden 2008).
While the primary focus of their study was to assess water usage and discuss more
prudent uses for the resource, they quickly drew the conclusion that water waste was so
closely tied to food waste that solving the food waste issue was critical in reducing the
amount of water being unnecessarily expended. In order to identify where the loss of
kilocalories was occurring in the food chain, Lundqvist and his colleagues created a
simple diagram to demonstrate where this destruction of nutrition was occurring (Figure
2, which is based on global averages). But just as there are significant differences
between undernourishment rates in developed and developing countries, so too are
there differences where waste occurs in the trip from farm to table. The UN’s FAO finds
that developing countries see more waste coming from a lack of ability to harvest,
process and transport goods efficiently (Gustavsson, Cederberg, and Sonesson 2011).
Developed countries, on the other hand, are more likely to see food waste coming from
over-production of commodities, higher appearance quality standards and cheap food.
Looking at food wasted by region shows that there is no single solution to global food
waste/loss (see Figure 3 for a complete breakdown by region). North America sees a
higher percentage of produce lost at the hands of the consumer than any other region.
It has also has a significant portion lost during the distribution of the fruits and
vegetables.
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Figure 3: Fruits and Vegetables lots in the food supply chain, by region. Unlike Figure 1, this accounts for losses
that occur after the purchase by the consumer. (Source: Gustavsson, et al., 2011)
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A National Concern
Focusing on the North American markets provides a food waste perspective that is more
familiar. While there is again variation in estimates on exactly how much food is being
wasted, a 1997 study that finds 32% of food produced in America is wasted. Kantor’s
study is one of the first comprehensive attempts to describe the state of food waste in
America and how it occurs (Kantor et al. 1997). Regarding produce, Kantor estimates it
accounts for nearly 20% of consumer and foodservice losses. More recent data from
the FAO estimates food losses at around 40% - a truly staggering number, given that the
United States produced some 590 billion pounds of food in 2011 (Bloom 2010). The
losses in the fruit and vegetable market alone have massive economic implications.
Using FAO data, Gunders goes on to parse out the inefficiencies at each stage of the
food supply chain (Gunders 2012).
According to Gunders (and in agreement with Gustavsson), consumer loss accounts for
the single greatest source of value destruction in produce supply chains. Addressing
food waste (or any behavior, for that matter) in homes is extremely difficult, however,
because of the expense- it would be akin to customer education. With an estimated
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115 million households in the
United States, changing food
waste at this stage will be a long
and costly process (“USA
QuickFacts from the US Census
Bureau” 2014). Targeting
consumer produce waste is only
further confounded by the fact
Figure 4: A basic framework for understanding the sources of food
that Americans are spending
waste in agricultural supply chains (Source: Lundqvist, et. al, 2008)
increasingly less on food than they
have in the past- only 7% of household income goes to food (Thompson 2013). While
this trend is not limited to the United States, Americans still spend about half the of
what the French do on food and more than 35% less than Egyptians. Food is cheap in
America, supported by government subsidies and massive agricultural industries that
can provide fresh produce year round and a fraction of the cost it used to take. The
lower the value of the commodity, the less the bottom line hurts when it is wasted. The
effect is just as true for businesses as it is for households.
Putting the losses from produce waste in an economic context makes the practices
seem all the more startling. In 1997, fruit and vegetable sales in the United States came
to nearly $71 billion dollars (Dimitri, Tegene, and Kaufman 2003). This has grown to be
$100 billion (“Best Practices: Transporting Fresh Food to Reduce Supply Chain Spoilage”
2015), more than half of which (52%) is never consumed by human. The distribution and
retail phase, which is where the focus of this study falls, accounts for $9.22bn of food
wasted in a single year. With that much money at stake, it’s no wonder that people all
around the agricultural supply chain have begun to take notice.
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REDIRECTION OF WASTE
Realizing the destructive nature of the cycle, increasingly diverse stakeholders have
turned an eye to produce waste streams. Tristram Stuart’s Waste and Jonathon Bloom’s
American Wasteland called attention to food waste around the globe and in America,
respectively. In the US, one of the major efforts is the result of a collaboration between
The Food Marketing Institute, Grocery Manufacturers Association and National
Restaurant Association have formed the Food Waste Reduction Alliance (“FWRA”)
whose goal is to provide communities and businesses the tools they need to redirect
waste from landfills to other uses. (Best Practices & Emerging Solutions Toolkit 2014).
The FWRA seeks to “shrink our environmental footprint, and simultaneously address
hunger in America” by examining the members’ own operations and making them more
efficient, while simultaneously looking to donate or redistribute the remaining waste
(“About the FWRA” 2013). Perhaps one of the most useful innovations for providing a
framework for interpreting food waste and ways to alleviate it comes from the US EPA’s
Food Recovery Hierarchy1.
The Food Recovery Hierarchy and Beyond
What makes the EPA’s Food Recovery Hierarchy so useful is its comprehensive nature
and ease of interpretation. The end goal of this redistribution is to maximize the amount
of nutrition still being delivered to humans while also reducing how much waste reaches
the landfill (“Food Waste - US EPA - The Food Waste Hierarchy” 2014). The FRH not only
1 The EU uses a very similar framework as part of their Food Use for Social Innovation by Optimising Waste
Prevention Strategies project, which launch in 2012 as a 4-year venture to achieve a “more resource efficient Europe”
(“EU FUSIONS” 2012), after realizing it produced 100 million tonnes of food waste annually (“Food Waste” 2015).
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identifies the pathways for cutting down on food waste, but also provides the
stakeholders in the supply chain real solutions for reducing their own waste.
There are 6 defined stages in the hierarchy, prioritized by how much benefit each
provides to humans:
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Source Reduction:
-
Feed Hungry People:
-
Feed Animals:
-
Industrial Uses:
-
Composting:
-
Landfill:
Figure 5: The EPA’s Food Recovery Hierarchy organizes food waste reduction activities from “Most Preferred” to
“Least Preferred” (Source: Food Waste - US EPA - The Food Waste Hierarchy” 2014).
Source Reduction
Source Reduction isn’t really about waste diversion, but about using practices that don’t
create food waste in the first place. For instance, a food waste assessment will identify
the areas in a home or business which are creating the most waste resource (“Resource
Conservation - Food Waste Reduction and Prevention” 2015). The EPA provides a
number of tactics for reducing food waste in the kitchen, proper preparation and
storage. There are also suggestions for using plate waste by changing serving size and
even menu modification to create foods that customers will enjoy more and be more
likely to finish eating.
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Feed Hungry People
Charitable Causes
The first stage of the FRH that is an actual redirection of waste, “feed hungry people”
dictates that whenever food is safe to eat, it should be kept for humans. The FRH
provides a suggestion for reducing food waste- donating it to organizations that provide
for the needy (“Resource Conservation - Let’s Feed Families, Not Landfills | Wastes | US
EPA” 2014). Whether its is food banks, pantries or food rescue programs, there are a lot
of options out there for providing food aid to those who need it most. The FRH also
explains that businesses are protected by Good Samaritan Act, which “was created to
prevent to prevent good food from going to waste and to protect companies from
liability surrounding their donations” (Ibid). Businesses can also take advantage of tax
benefits based on the value of what they are donating, providing an economic value of
donating food, rather than wasting it.
Salvage Groceries
One area the FRH does not look into is salvage groceries. Salvage groceries are a very
attractive option for shoppers looking to shave a few dollars from their grocery budget.
They’ll typically take fresh produce that may be near its expiration date, salvage from
trucks or produce overstocks . While most salvage groceries are smaller, family-owned
enterprises, a number of salvage grocers have achieved major scale and are now able to
offer a wider variety of produce and can handle entire truckloads of fresh goods.
Grocery Outlet, a California-based chain which also operates in the Philadelphia area, is
a $960 million business which was able to source 75% of its products- including fresh
produce- from closeouts and overruns (Gunders 2012). There are even wholesale food
suppliers who specialize in distribution of closeout foods, including produce. Atlantabased 404 Foods buys dry goods, cleaning products and frozen foods from
manufacturers and merchandisers that have excess supply, go out of business or have
dead-stock (“About Us - 404 Foods - Food Closeouts and Liquidation” 2014). In North
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Carolina, salvage groceries are independent operations that have single outlets and lack
scale and buying power (“Discount Grocery Store Directory | Extreme Bargains” 2013).
Food Processors
Also missing from the FRH are food processors. One reason that may cause a load of
fresh produce to be rejected is the appearance, shape or texture of the fruit. An
everyday example of this might be a load of berries being bruised during the shipping or
loading process and being unfit for a display stand in the grocery store. While
nutritiously undistinguishable from unbruised produce, the grocer or distributor may
reject it because it feels its customers won’t want to buy it. One solution that some
companies are using is redirecting the produce to food processors, meaning the
consumer never sees the raw material so it doesn’t alter their likelihood to purchase the
good. One strategy that is a hybrid model of processing and charitable donations occurs
in New Jersey. Campbell’s has partnered with Food Bank of South Jersey to create Just
Peachy Salsa, which takes peaches that may have irregular size/shape and some
cosmetic damage (Polhamus 2013). In its pilot run of 2012, the plant produced 42,000
jars and raised $92,000 for the food bank.
Feed Animals
That food waste which cannot be diverted to feed humans may still be suitable for
feeding animals such as hogs or cattle. While there are regulations about what can be
fed to animals, there are no barriers surrounding the diversion of food waste to feed
animals so long as it does not contain any meat or animal materials (“Resource
Conservation - Feed Animals” 2013). The EPA also provides a number of successful case
studies where food waste acts as a supplement to swine and cattle diets, reducing the
cost of feeding the animals while also providing them some differentiation in their diets.
Hogs have been used for thousands of years as a method for disposing of human
agricultural waste and refuse. Even in modern times, people have welcomed hogs as a
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source for getting rid of their unwanted or spoiled food- as late as 1980, some Rhode
Island communities had a municipal curbside pickup service for food scraps which they
would take to local pig farmers to feed their hogs (Faulkner 2014). A more
contemporary example would be Bob Combs’ RC Farms, which has received significant
media attention for its success in feeding pigs on its 160-acre hog farm with leftover
waste from the gluttonous buffets of Las Vegas (Hirsch 2014). While hogs are the
recipients of most food waste streams, there are some generators of produce waste
which choose to divert their waste to feed cattle. As with pigs, this diversion is not
subject to additional government regulation, provided there are no meat products in
the mix (“Feed Animals” 2013).
Industrial Uses
The FRH points out that instead of sending fats, oils and greases (FOGs) to a landfill or
sewer, waste generators should use their waste streams as the inputs for creating
biodiesel or rendering the fats in to soaps, foods or cosmetics (“Resource Conservation |
Industrial Uses (Fats, Oils, and Grease” 2013). Another alternative would be to send the
FOGs to an anaerobic digester, wherein microbes eat the waste and give off methane as
a byproduct, which is then used to generate green energy (the value of anaerobic
digesters will be discussed later in this project).
Composting
Composting takes decaying organic matter and turns it in a valuable, nutrient-rich
addition to soil, also known as a soil amendment. While the idea may be simple, the
execution is much more complex than most people realize- particle size, composition,
moisture content and environmental factors all have to be taken in to consideration
when devising a commercial composting strategy (“Resource Conservation - Composting
for Facilities Basics” 2014). It’s also in the final stage of both the EPA’s food waste
hierarchies. It should only be used as a last-resort when all other diversion methods
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have failed because it is, essentially a waste stream and entails a significant amount of
nutrient loss, including nitrogen (there are studies on ways that the nutrient loss can be
mitigated) (“Reclamation of Nitrogen and Other Nutrients” 2015). While many of these
nutrients are being put back in to ecosystems, they are leaving the human consumption
stream. Only once composting is not a viable option should food be directed towards
landfills.
Anaerobic Digestion
Anaerobic digestion is a process in which microorganisms break down organic matter
but do so without the presence of oxygen. The goal of this process is the creation of
biogas, which is a form of renewable energy that can be used for everything from
creating heat and electricity to powering vehicles (“What Is Anaerobic Digestion?”
2013). There are two types of digesters, low-solid and high-solid digesters, named for
the percentage of digesting material that goes in as solid matter (as opposed to water,
oils and fats) (“Anaerobic Digestion” 2014). Numerous studies from around the world
are investigating the financial and environmental benefits of diverting food waste
streams- both pre- and post-consumer- to digesters instead of sending them to landfills
(Hojnacki et al. 2011). Like composting, anaerobic digesters also have a solid waste
component to them, which can be used as a soil amendment (also known as soil
conditioner). Some composting waste streams, in fact, actually have their genesis in
anaerobic digestion and can derive their own inputs from this process, which has
already been sorted to remove non-organics from the stream (“Problems & Solutions |
Organic Waste Treatment Facility” 2015). Also like composters, digesters rely on the
ability to charge a fee for disposing at their facility. These fees are typically similar to
what would be paid to dump the rejected produce at a solid waste facility and are
essential for the project to be successful economically (DSM Environmental Services,
Inc. and R. S. Lynch & Company 2010).
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Figure 6: An anaerobic digester uses
organic waste as an energy source.
Once inert residues that won’t
decompose are separated out, waste
enters into the digesters, which results
in two valuable outputs- an organic
byproduct which can be used as a
fertilizer and a methane-rich biogas,
which can be combusted to produce
heat and electricity. (Source: Problems
& Solutions | Organic Waste Treatment
Facility 2015)
RECENT FOOD WASTE DIVERSION LITERATURE
In recent years, food waste has received increasing attention from businesses and
academics alike. Some research seeks to explain the “Why?” and “How?” of a system
that allows so much food in the United States to go uneaten. Others seek to elaborate
on opportunities to divert food waste to a particular function, such as composting or
anaerobic digestion. These are typically done in an international or national context
(Gunders 2012) (Stuart 2009) (Bloom 2010) (Parfitt, Barthel, and Macnaughton 2010).
The solutions they provide are designed to be broad, as necessitated by the scope of
their studies- a successful waste diversion tactic in one part of the world will likely not
work in another. At the very least, it would need to be modified to account for different
climactic, economic and political environments.
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While these studies provide many insights in to food waste, they do not differentiate
food waste to the granularity of this research project. Gunders lumps together losses
from retail and transportation but doesn’t distinguish how much of this waste is full
shipments. Further, those numbers are for the USA, Canada, New Zealand and
Australia, which assume that solutions in one country will work for all those in the
region.
By focusing on food waste recovery activities in North Carolina, this research can
present more accurate recommendations for keeping fresh produce out of landfills. The
prescriptive solutions are less likely to be nullified by different laws, environmental
factors and pricing indices (such as varying fuel costs). Similarly, taking a closer look at a
single source of produce waste generation- rejecting shipments of fresh foods- allows
for a more targeted approach to redirecting the waste. It also allows for more specific
insights that wouldn’t apply to other sources of food waste. For instance, by using
produce, the need to cook the waste to ensure no animal-borne disease is nullified.
Second, by using full shipments, scale alone ensures a higher incentive to divert the
waste than a case or pallet of produce. With more value on the line in each diversion
event, the producer is more willing to try to find an alternative use for their produce.
HOW MUCH NORTH CAROLINA PRODUCE IS REJECTED?
The literature review provides anecdotal examples of entire loads of produce being
abandoned in landfills (Bloom 2010). Further, in his book Waste: Uncovering the Global
Food Scandal, author Tristram Stuart estimates that 20-40% of fruits and vegetables are
rejected before they even reach their destinations because they do not meat the high
aesthetic standards of the buyer (Stuart 2009). Gunders adds some context:
A larger problem that occurs at the distribution stage is that of rejected shipments.
Rejected perishable shipments can be dumped if another buyer cannot be found in time. If
these perishables do make it to a store, they have a shorter shelf life by the time they get
there. Sometimes they are brought to food banks if the food banks have the capacity to
22
take them. Even food banks sometimes reject these loads because they cannot use them in
the quantities being shipped, for instance a truckload of beets. Distribution centers can
also find themselves with surplus product when individual stores don’t require what they
had forecasted. (Gunders 2012).
With this much produce being rejected, secondary markets should be flourishing. Some
are doing well- but many could be doing better. To put this in context, I conducted a
series of key interviews with participants in these diversionary waste streams. These
were not limited to just the participants whose businesses were directly involved in the
diversion process, but also included institutional representatives from state and local
bodies who were associated with food waste in North Carolina.
The project’s scope provides evidence that there is a significant supply of fresh produce
being wasted in North Carolina. Knowing that fresh produce waste exists is important
but knowing why it persists is more critical to eliminating it. Growers and grocers
generate the produce waste, but understanding why they do so can help eliminate it
from the system. On the demand side, identifying what diversion streams exist in North
Carolina is only part of the equation for increasing diversion. If the pathways for the
diversion of produce waste exist, explaining why more food waste isn’t redirected
through them is essential to increasing their efficacy. In Gunders 2012, the author
provides figures for produce wasted in the various elements of the supply chain for a
region comprised of the USA, Canada, New Zeraland and Australia, based on UN Food
and Agriculture Organization data. Other studies, like Gustavsson 2011, provide a similar
structure for the world. However, the literature review did not produce a study that
attempted to quantify the foods in the US that are going to waste because they were
rejected by the vendor as being unfit for human consumption.
Stuart 2009 provides the estimation of 20-40% as a range of how many fruits and
vegetables are being rejected before they reach the shops in the UK. Using the
assumption that the United States would have a similarly structured market (both Stuart
2009 and Bloom 2010 call their respective nations’ unnecessarily high). From a food
23
safety perspective, the countries are also similar; in the UK, food safety is the
responsibility the Food Standards Agency, a national agency with local enforcement
divisions, much like the US Food and Drug Administration (“About the FSA” 2015). There
isn’t a specification as to where in the supply chain this rejection occurs- it could be
anywhere along the chain from grower to packer/processor to distributor or warehouse.
Using data from the North Carolina Field office of the USDA and Stuart’s suggested
ranges, we can create an upper and lower boundary for the amount of each of the
major produce types listed in Table 1 that was rejected in 2014 before reaching
Acres
Harvested
Yield
(ton/acre)
Total
Production
(tons)
Low
Rejection
(20%) (tons)
High
Rejection
(40%) (tons)
Sweet Potatoes
Apple
Peach
Grape
Watermelons
Potatoes
Sweet Corn
Beans, snap (bush
and pole)
Cucumbers and
pickles
Tomatoes in the
open**
Cabbage, head*
Squash, all
Acres
Planted
consumers:
63,000
8,400
16,500
7,300
62,000
6,700
1,110
1,800
8,300
16,000
7,200
10.00
2.50
4.82
2.75
15.00
10.00
6.00
620,000
16,750
5,350
4,950
124,500
160,000
43,200
124,000
3,350
1,070
990
24,900
32,000
8,640
248,000
6,700
2,140
1,980
49,800
64,000
17,280
5,100
5,000
2.00
10,000
2,000
4,000
5,800
5,800
9.50
55,100
11,020
22,040
3,400
4,800
3,500
3,300
4,700
3,400
16.25
13.50
10.00
53,625
63,450
34,000
10,725
12,690
6,800
21,450
25,380
13,600
24
Table 1: Acres Planted, Harvested and Total Production for major produce types in North Carolina. The numbers
for rejection are very high, meaning that a significant amount of time and resources would need to be devoted
in order to find new channels for all of the produce (Source: Crop Summary – Field Crops, Fruits, Vegetables)
These numbers represent the weight of rejected shipments occurring in North Carolina.
These ranges are a good estimation for the amount of rejected produce that is of North
Carolina origin because it does not take in to account imported produce nor the exports
out of the state. It does, however, provide a picture of the volume and corresponding
impact of these rejected loads in North Carolina, representing the best proxy data
available on a statewide scale.
One linkage that Stuart does not make is suggesting that fields that go unharvested for
lack of a buyer are similar in nature to rejected shipments. On average in the United
States, around 7 percent of fields go unharvested each year(Gunders 2012). There are a
number of causes that might explain why a crop was grown but never brought to
market: labor shortages are estimated to cost $140 million in crop loss annually; food
safety scares (a potential salmonella outbreak in tomatoes in 2008 lead to 32% of
tomato acres going unharvested that year) (Ibid); and, damage caused from pests and
unexpected weather events. But there is another reason that can be argued to be a
rejection of the market: fluctuations in market demand and misalignments of growing
forecasts. If growers experience a bumper crop, they may end up with crop that is
perfectly nutritious but doesn’t haven’t anywhere to go. It is the same case when
buyers over-predict their sales in a season- the farmers still leave their crop to
decompose in the field. If we think of these loads as being implicitly rejected, then the
numbers presented in table 1 are actually quite conservative estimates.
25
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Project Scope
Combining elements from the literature review provides a framework for understanding
how agricultural, and more specifically, produce waste occurs. While there are a
number of studies which attempt to quantify food waste in America, it is an extremely
difficult endeavor- some studies quantify food waste in terms of BTU lost. BTUs are a
measurement of energy that may be difficult for some to relate to food waste. Others
go a step further and provide analogies to other metrics people might be more familiar
with such as water used to produce the wasted food or carbon emissions associated
with the food that is wasted (Chapagain and James 2011). Chapagain and James do also
include financial and weight numbers for these losses, which helps put food waste in a
more approachable format. Still, Gunders points out that the differences in
methodology, scope and measurements makes it very difficult for studies to
corroborate or even conflict with one another (Gunders 2012).
This complexity makes it necessary to define an appropriate scope for the projectscaling the project will result in a clearer, stronger argument. This master’s project was
scoped to the following parameters:
-
Geography: North Carolina.
-
Commodity: Fresh Produce.
-
Event in the Supply Chain: Freight loads rejected for quality/quantity issues.
North Carolina is an ideal scope for this project for a number of reasons. First- the state
produces a large amount of produce destined for fresh markets. In 2012, more than
89,000 acres of vegetables, melons and potatoes were harvested in the state of North
26
Carolina (Vegetables, Potatoes, and Melons Harvested for Sale: 2012 and 2007 2012).
Another 16,000 acres are devoted to berries and fruits2 (Specified Fruits and Nuts by
Acres: 2012 and 2007 2012). Table 2 lists all the vegetables, potatoes and melons as
well as the fruits and berries that had more than 1,000 acres harvested for sale at a
fresh market.
Vegetables, Potatoes and Melons
Crop
Sweet Potatoes
Watermelons
Potatoes
Sweet Corn
Beans, snap (bush and pole)
Cucumbers and pickles
Tomatoes in the open
Cabbage, head
Squash, all
Fruits and Berries
Acres
62,000
8,300
16,000
7,200
5,000
5,800
3,300
4,700
3,400
Crop
Blueberries
Apples
Grapes
Peaches
Acres
5,700
6,700
1,800
1,100
Table 2: The major sources of fresh produce in North Carolina; there are more acres of sweet potatoes planted
than all other types of produce listed combined. (Source: Crop Summary – Field Crops, Fruits, Vegetables)
Second, in addition to producing a wide variety of types of fresh produce, North Carolina
also generates a significant amount of commercial food waste. The 2012 North Carolina
Food Waste Generation Study estimated food waste losses from the commercial sector
to be 569,343 tons (Freeman, McKinney, and Mouw 2012).
Finally, the literature review provides multiple suggestions for diverting food waste to
more valuable uses, which have been discussed above in terms of the Food Recovery
Hierarchy. Selecting a market that already has the routes working- such as North
2 The calculation for fruit and berries is for only those fields that were harvested and of bearing age
27
Carolina- allows for a real-time evaluation of the FRH in practice, not just an academic
exercise.
Research Tradition
This project was conducted as an exploratory study, using the literature as a guide for
what questions could best illuminate why fresh produce shipments were still being
wasted. Exploratory research is research that may be “theory-informed” but is not
“theory-driven” (Waters 2007). That is to say, the research may begin with a hypothesis
as to the nature of the phenomenon being explored, but the theory itself will be
influenced by the data being gathered (Shields and Rangarajan 2013). To generate my
original theory on why produce waste might exist in North Carolina, I conducted an
exploration into food waste (more specifically produce waste) on a national an
international scale, examining causes and reduction opportunities. By using a series of
in-depth interviews, I then added context to “how “ and “why” these activities occur in
North Carolina in regards to a specific event- the market’s rejection of fresh produce.
As discussed in the ‘Recent Food Waste Diversion Literature’ section, research into food
waste diversions have typically been conducted at the national or international level and
have focused more on the causes of food waste than presenting solutions to diverting
more waste. Those instances which have produced quantitative figures for the amount
of food waste in North Carolina (Freeman, McKinney, and Mouw 2012) and
opportunities to divert that waste (Rosa 2012) have not specifically focused on the
phenomenon of rejected shipments. Exploratory research is primarily conducted when
there is a lack of available information on a given topic (Shields and Rangarajan 2013).
Further, the goal of exploratory studies is to “push not-yet formed or preliminary
questions forward”. Exploratory studies are useful when not enough data or literature is
available to make a comparative study, nullifying the usage of analytics (Hartman and
Hedblom 1979). Exploratory research is less concerned with trying to quantify a
phenomenon and more interested in demonstrating that it exists and providing some
28
indication as to why it persists. Studies like Gunders’ have assigned waste percentages
to fresh produce but there has not been research quantifying how much of that is the
result of a rejected shipment or one that was never harvested because it lacked at buyer
(and thus, the market rejected it before it ever left the farm).
More specifically, this research project borrows from the grounded theory tradition,
which “emphasizes the importance of empirical fieldwork and the need to link any
explanations very closely to what happens in the practical situations in ‘the real world’
(Denscombe 2007). First described by Barney G. Glaser and Anselm L. Strauss, grounded
theory was a direct reaction to research being conducted at that time, which tended to
generate theories a priori and ignored the benefits of generating theories throughout
the research process itself (Glaser and Strauss 1967). Grounded theory, then, as a type
of exploratory experiment, does not seek to test an initial, rigid idea, but to evolve the
theory throughout the research process. Because it places an “emphasis on discovery”
grounded theory is an appropriate tool for researchers who are exploring a area where
little research has been done (Denscombe 2007). A grounded theory is particularly
useful in this project because it is adaptable to allow for various data collection
methods, pragmatic, and provides explanations that are based on real-world examples
and not concepts and theories that may fail when exposed to real situations. Keeping in
mind the goal of this project- to explain why some fresh produce is diverted to
productive uses while other is not- the grounded theory approach allows for a
hypothesis to develop through the research itself.
Qualitative Interviews
I conducted 13 interviews with stakeholders throughout the food waste supply chain:

Produce Growers (3)

Hog Farmers (4)

Private Composters (4)
29

Non-profit Food Distributors (1)

Grocers (1)
In these interviews, I asked businesses associated with food waste to weigh in on a
number of themes that the research had suggested as being bottlenecks to increasing
diversion of rejected loads to alternative resource streams. A questionnaire was
generated using the literature review and the Food Recovery Hierarchy as a guide. The
Hierarchy provides insights in to what activities in the food waste stream will capture
more value than sending the rejected shipments to a landfill. (a full interview guide can
be found in Appendix A):
-
How (if at all) had they been able to divert food waste from the landfill?
-
What do they see as the major barriers to increasing this diversion?
-
What are your major concerns in working with food waste streams?
-
What are the benefits of working with food waste in your position?
Respondents for these interviews were selected using a mixed sampling strategy. For
produce farmers, I first employed a simple random sample, using publicly available
databases to locate produce waste producers and potential diversion streams. A simple
random sample is a form of probability sampling wherein any member of the sample
has an equal chance of being selected for participation in the research (Gliner and
Morgan 2000). The list of databases used can be found in Table 3. For each sample, I
selected only those potential respondents who had a published email address in the
database then used a random generator to select at least three respondents from each
group.
Produce Type
Sweet Potato
Apple
White Potato
Tomato
Database
http://www.ncsweetpotatoes.com/sweet-potato-industry/growers/
http://www.ncapplegrowers.com/
http://www.ncfreshlink.com/shipperdirectory/whitepotatoe_gsl.htm
http://www.ncfreshlink.com/shipperdirectory/tomatoes_gsl.htm
30
Blueberry
Watermelon
http://www.ncfreshlink.com/shipperdirectory/blueberry_gsl.htm
http://www.ncfreshlink.com/shipperdirectory/watermelon_gsl.htm
Table 3: NCFreshLink.com provides databases on many of the agricultural products being grown in North
Carolina
I selected these specific commodities because each represents a significant portion of
the whole of produce grown in North Carolina (refer back to table 1). However, I
achieved very low response rates using this strategy. To supplement these interviews, I
attended a produce growers meeting held by Harris Teeter and was able to meet 2
growers face-to-face at that meeting.
Waste stream diverters were specifically targeted for participation in this study. The
North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources provided me a list of
composting facilities in North Carolina that were able to compost food waste. Again, I
used a random number generator to select which composters to interview and
supplemented these interviews with some referrals to other composters in the state.
These 13 interviews provided the context I needed to explain why more fresh produce
wasn’t being diverted from landfills to other uses. Throughout these interviews, it also
became apparent that state and local institutions were also affecting how produce
waste is diverted in North Carolina. While neither a buyer nor seller in the market,
actions being taken by state and local stakeholders could and did affect fresh produce
diversion in North Carolina. Specifically, NCDENR’s Division of Waste Management
oversees how solid waste is managed in North Carolina. I interviewed 3 members of
their team, using a modified version of the original questionnaire being used with
businesses directly participating in the food waste streams. These agents were able to
provide context on how the state is tracking food waste and working to reduce how
much of it reaches landfills. The NCDENR, in turn, directed me towards Blair Pollock, the
Solid Waste Planner for Orange County, NC, to get a local perspective on produce waste
management (the interview guide for government entities can be found in Appendix B).
31
Interviews
Overall, 17 in-depth interviews were conducted with the previously described
participants in the agricultural waste value chain. These interviews were conducted in
person, when possible and over the phone when it was more convenient for the
respondent. A paraphrased transcription from each interview was generated for future
reference and comparing it to the comments from other interviews.
ANALYSIS
As the interviews were conducted, respondents’ comments were loaded in to an Excel
worksheet, where responses to each question were compiled to compare how the
different participants responded to each. Again, using the grounded theory approach, I
allowed the data I compiled to suggest a number of themes for contrasting success
stories and shortcomings in waste diversion in North Carolina. Reviewing these
paraphrased transcripts, a number of points continued to be salient across respondents
of different activities in the waste stream:

Costs (Transportation, Reduction of costs, Transaction costs)

Scale

Barriers of Information

Value Creation

Food Safety/Risk
From the earliest interviews I conducted, the fundamental theory emerged. In the
grounded theory approach, a theory is generated early in the research collection
process and adapts to subsequent inputs of data. I noticed that those companies who
were successful diverting waste, whether using the diverted shipments themselves or
directing to another value-creating activity, tended to do so at a large scale. Further,
32
they were less likely to suffer from a lack of information. Working with the hypothesis
that scale was an essential component to successful waste diversion, I would update the
parameters of this belief as I compiled more and more data.
One other finding in the early analysis was the existence of a cognitive disconnect with
how waste producers and waste diversion streams view these rejected produce
shipments. I found that since waste is a byproduct of the fresh produce supply chain- a
cost of doing business- and it may have little to no value to those that generate it. It
does, however, have value to the hog farmers, composters and charity organizations
that view rejected shipments of produce as an actual input to their business. Gaining
insight in to this distinction is critical to aligning the supply of produce waste with the
demand. This finding was especially important in the context of food safety, where
there is a perception that food waste generators are hesitant to divert rejected
shipments back to humans for fear of exposure to legal or public scrutiny if the produce
is suspected of being hazardous.
REJECTED SHIPMENTS: SUCCESS STORIES
With such large produce waste potential from the rejection of shipments, the economic
potential of diverting these streams from landfills is quite large. Some strategies have
already begun to take hold in the Carolinas, while the foundations of other valuecreating activities are just being laid.
Reducing Rejected Shipments at the Source
Recalling the Food Recovery Hierarchy, the first step was to reduce food waste at the
source. The most preferred way for reducing food waste is never generating waste in
the first place. While the EPA provides the context on how to accomplish this in the
residential or commercial kitchen, some farmers in North Carolina are finding ways to
33
reduce food waste where they produce it and extract even more value from their
operations.
One grower I interviewed, Ron Cottle, has found a new home for many of the berries
that he can’t sell to his buyers because they would be rejected for aesthetic reasons. His
business, Cottle Strawberry Nursery and Farms (“Cottle Farms”), is one of the largest
strawberry growers in Eastern North Carolina and also grows a variety of other produce
including blueberries and blackberries (“Produce” 2015). As I interviewed Mr. Cottle, he
told me that in their 50+ years of running Cottle Farms, they had come to understand
which berries would be accepted by their customers and which would be rejected
(Cottle 2015). This repeated interaction with his customers allows Mr. Cottle and his
staff to pre-sort out the berries which are called ‘seconds’- while nutritionally the same
as the first quality berries, they are not perfect in their cosmetic appearance. Cottle has
found a number of routes to extract value from these berries: he creates purees out of
both strawberries and blueberries; he sends blueberries to winemakers who ferment
the berries for making a sweet wine. Finally, he’s recently launched a line of smoothies
that are already featured on campus of the University of North Carolina (Ibid).
Cottle Farms goes beyond just reducing the waste at the source in putting the Food
Recovery Hierarchy in to action. What they can’t reuse in their own operations they will
first try to divert to the a terminal market, such as the North Carolina’s Farmer’s Market
in Raleigh, NC (Cottle 2015). Terminal markets are central places, such as farmer’s
markets, where agricultural products are collected in a single location so that
commodities can be sold via a public platform. Buyers can see the products that Cottle is
bringing to market and decide what it is worth to them. Produce sold at terminal
markets is typically priced close to cost, similar to the returns from a salvage grocer.
Failing to successfully redirect shipments to these terminal markets, Cottle Farms will
divert the shipments to charitable organizations, which provide a low-risk, taxincentivized opportunity for maximizing human nutritional needs.
34
Cottle Farms is not alone in devising creative solutions to capture more value in-house.
Ham Produce Company, for example, has over 13,000 acres of sweet potatoes across 17
counties and 3 states, making it the largest grower of sweet potatoes in the country
(Kornegay 2015). Producing this many sweet potatoes means that in years where there
is a bumper crop, Ham Produce can expect sweet potato production to exceed the
market’s demand for the fresh vegetable. Rather than see their crop rot in the fields or
wind up rejected by a buyer who simply can’t move the product, they have adapted a
mixed strategy to create processed goods that have a longer shelf life than fresh
produce. First, they partnered with three other sweet potato growers to launch Yamco,
LLC, which takes the fresh sweet potatoes and turns them in to a sweet potato puree
(they also process butternut squash and spinach similarly but to a lesser scale). Yamco
has two primary formulations- processed grade for baking, and a baby food formulationwhich differ only in their consistency. Next, Ham Produce partnered with Covington
Spirits, which launched a vodka made from fermented sweet potatoes, which actually
took home a gold medal at the 2013 World Spirits Competition in San Francisco
(Hollerman 2013). Most Recently, Ham Produce has launched Natural Blend Vegetable
Dehydration, which creates dehydrated pellets/cubes out of sweet potatoes which are
then added in to pet foods (Kornegay 2015). By using these three diversion tactics
which keep fresh produce from ever being identifies as waste in the first place, Ham
Produce is able to capture more value and create a system that keeps them at zero
produce being sent to a landfill. What little amount of rotten produce or dirt waste they
create from quality control and washing the sweet potatoes gets returned to the soil in
the form of compost.
Ham Produce not only maximizes the value from their own sweet potatoes, but also
provides a valuable service to other growers who lack Ham’s scale. Instead of letting
small farmers shoulder the cost of unsold produce at the end of a season, Ham actually
buys their excess produce and will put it through their processing facility at Yamco,
providing the farmer with some value that would have otherwise been lost in the field
35
or rejected by a customer who didn’t require additional produce (Kornegay 2015).
Kornegay suggests that their success in reaching small farmers all over the state is in
part due to the work of the NC Sweet Potato Commission, whose “sole purpose of the
commission is to increase sweet potato consumption through education, promotional
activities, research and honorable horticultural practices among its producers” (“About
Us” 2015). The commission helps provide services and support to farmers that
otherwise would lack access to information about such programs as Ham Produce’s
processing facilities. In the interview with Kornegay, he suggested that there probably
wasn’t a single farmer in North Carolina who didn’t know that Ham Produce could help
them move excess inventory and he commended the work that the commission did in
supporting North Carolina’s farmers (Kornegay 2015).
Charities Offer a Risk-free Market for Diverted Shipments
Charities such as North Carolina’s Inter-Faith Food Shuttle rely on donations,
government funding and some volunteer support. For 25 years, the Shuttle has used a
combination of gleaning (harvesting excess food that goes unpicked in fields) and food
recovery from cafeterias, restaurants and other local outlets that have excess, edible
food. Seeking to provide food that is also healthy and not empty calories, the Shuttle
places extra emphasis on fresh produce. Another major diversion channel in North
Carolina is the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina. In 2013, they
distributed 52 million pounds of food to families in need- 18 million of which was fresh
produce (“Financials and Materials” 2014). During my visit to the FBCENC, I saw first
hand the ability of food banks to divert large amounts of produce waste to the people
who need it the most.
36
Figure 7: At the FBCENC a group of volunteers remove the outer
Figure 8: Sweet potatoes sitting
layers of cabbage that was damage by frost in the fields, revealing
outside the receiving dock at
perfectly edible produce underneath.
FBCENC’s warehouse.
Carter Crain, the FBCENC’s Food Resources Manager, works to maximize the donations
coming in from 840 partner agencies. The operation has 7 trucks that can help pick up
and drop off food as necessary and their commercial trucking budget represents a major
cost stream (Crain 2015). The FBCENC receives many shipments of fresh produce
throughout the year, which typically follow the growing season. Farmers are unable to
sell all of their product or see it rejected for some cosmetic reasons- sometimes light
spoilage is cause for rejection, but there is still a significant amount of produce that is
still edible. The food bank sorts, repackages and redistributes these rejected shipments
before sending them off to their network of food kitchens, churches and other aid
groups. While these rejected shipments are difficult to plan for, Mr. Crain and the
FBCENC have a strong aversion to ever rejecting a shipment of produce- their mission is
too important.
Whether it’s the Interfaith Food Shuttle or the Food Bank of Central and East North
Carolina, charitable donations offer companies the ability to redirect rejected shipments
(and others other pre-consumer food waste in general) without the same risk exposure
that re-selling the produce at a terminal market of salvage grocery. Companies who
donate “apparently wholesome food in good-faith” are protected under the Good
37
Samaritan Act (“Resource Conservation - Let’s Feed Families, Not Landfills | Wastes | US
EPA” 2014). One of the main reasons for creation of the act was to encourage
companies to donate this food that would otherwise go to a landfill for fear of legal
action if someone later got sick and illness was traced back to the donor.
Food Lion: A Business Application of the Food Recovery Hierarchy
As a for profit company, Food Lion (part of the Delhaize America group) has the dual
mandate of reducing food waste and still making smart business choices. As a regional
grocer with lots of employers and responsibilities to shareholders, Food Lion’s actions to
reduce food waste also have to be smart business decisions. It’s one of the reasons that
Food Lion chooses to divert people-safe rejected shipments and its produce waste in
general to charitable organizations. In an interview with Food Lion’s sustainability
manager Jeff Laughead, he said that donating Food Lion’s edible produce to charity not
only provided a valuable service to the community, but provide this produce in a
manner that minimizes company risk (Laughead 2015). In addition to being legally
protected, Food Lion can also receive tax benefits for the value of the produce that they
donate and significantly reduce their expenses (“Resource Conservation - Let’s Feed
Families, Not Landfills | Wastes | US EPA” 2014). Carter Crain over at the Food Bank of
Central and Eastern North Carolina is proud to call Food Lion his biggest donor- they
provide the charity around a million pounds of food every month- much of it perishable
fresh produce.
Food Lion isn’t satisfied with just donating their food waste to feed hungry people- their
efforts to divert food waste from landfills take a much more holistic approach. When
they have produce that isn’t fit for human consumption but is safe for livestock, they
attempt to divert every shipment possible to feed cattle- they’ve already redirected
more than 300,000lbs of it (Laughead 2015). Finally whatever can’t go to cattle, Food
Lion is working with several composters on pilot programs to have their food waste
provide nutrition for the next generation of crops.
38
Healthier, Tastier Hogs for only Peanuts a Day
That’s what North Carolina hog farmer Robert Elliot would argue. He has found a wastereducing, cost-saving way to complete the diet of the hogs at Cypress Hill Farms. The
owner, Robert Elliot, has been using agricultural waste streams for years to feed his
hogs (Elliot 2015). Originally, Elliot was using spent grains from a local brewery. When
that supply became inaccessible, he began searching for other options. His search led
him to look at the peanut processing supply chain and he found a supplier and processor
that would regularly have some extra produce. Because of Robert’s scale, he was only
looking to purchase several thousand pounds at a time, but as his business grows, he
sees himself taking more and more peanuts for his hogs.
Elliot is quick to point out a number of benefits in his strategy. He says his hogs are
about 25% larger and much healthier than those raised in a feedlot. Elliot also believes
this diet of peanuts (in addition to whatever they forage in his pastures) makes the hogs
taste much better than those fed only grains (Elliot 2015) and is quick to point out that
his customers agree. Almost as important as producing a superior pork product, using
peanuts also helps Elliot reduce his cost. Hog farmers spend more money on feed than
any other part of raising their livestock, so any opportunity to cut this cost could provide
a major competitive advantage. Elliot is able to purchase 50 pounds of peanuts for only
$7.50 whereas a 50-lb bag of organic feed running about $35 would be nearly five times
more expensive. Elliot has found a cost-saving advantage that will divert an increasing
amount of produce from landfills as Elliot’s business grows
Diversification: An In-house Opportunity to Divert Food Waste
While Cottle Farms diversified their business to redirect as much fresh produce as
possible to providing humans with as much nutrition as possible, other members of this
developing waste supply chain have found it beneficial to diversify across activities of
the Hierarchy. Tommy Winston, a 2012 inductee to the North Carolina Vegetable
39
Growers Hall of Fame, has grown just about everything in his years as a farmer- from
grain to tomatoes and even tobacco. While his farm has scaled back significantly from
the operation it once was, Mr. Winston still sees the value of keeping a few cattle in
addition to growing tomatoes and sweet corn (Winston 2015). While he is no longer at
the scale he once was and is less likely to fill a full semi-trailer truck, he recalls a time
when that was a much more common order. While a rejected shipment is the last thing
a grower ever wants, they are simply a reality of business, Mr. Winston says. A
shipment can get rejected for the smallest of aesthetic imperfections and then the
farmer is must find an alternative source for redirecting the produce waste. Most of his
deliveries these days can de done with a pickup truck, but there are still rejections of
shipments from time to time- he recalls a time not too long ago when a customer
rejected 200 boxes of tomatoes. Left holding the proverbial bag, Mr. Winston employs
a diversified strategy that encompasses two layers of the Food Recovery Hierarchy.
Similar to Cottle Farms, what food he can donate to charities and aid groups, he will,
and receive a tax credit for his efforts. The produce that cannot be donated trickles
down to the next tier of the FRH and feeds Mr. Winston’s cattle. While he hates to see
the food not be fed to humans it
was destined for, he knows that by
diverting it to his cattle, he’s not
only providing them with
additional nutrition, but he’s also
reducing his cost to kept his
livestock well-fed (Ibid).
This vertical diversification
strategy is not limited to these top
tiers of the Hierarchy. One of the
byproducts of anaerobic digestion is a
Figure 9: Anaerobic digester with soil amendment
soil amendment that is functionally
highlighted (Source: Problems & Solutions | Organic
Waste Treatment Facility 2015)
40
similar to adding compost to the soil (Figure 9). One composter I spoke with, Mark
Langner of MAYTime Composting, spoke to me about just such a business plan he is
constructing. Once he secures a large food waste stream to a long-term contract (the
payback periods of digesters can be between 3-7 years (Anaerobic Digesters 2011), he is
looking at business opportunities of including an anaerobic digester (as well as a wastewater treatment plant) to provide a wider array of value creating services from disposal
of organic waste (Langner 2015). In this system, the digestates (solid matter) left from
digestion would become a low-cost feedstock for his compost business.
REJECTED SHIPMENTS: DISINCETIVES TO DIVERT
With these different opportunities, it would seem that these rejected shipments would
soon be a thing of the past- that the markets are already in place to redirect this waste.
Still, waste persists and by some estimates, grows every year. My research has identified
a number of alternative markets for food waste that provide cost savings to companies
and add more value to the community. Interviewing members involved in creating and
redirecting rejected shipments help provide answers on why rejected produce
shipments persist.
Barriers of Information
One difficulty in redirecting rejected shipments of produce is differences on how a
commodity is viewed. Traditionally, grocers, growers and distributors have only seen
produce waste as just that- waste. It was a cost of doing business. The diversion streams
mentioned in the Food Recovery Hierarchy see a value in this product, though, so it is
often on the users of the waste to go and search out the inputs to their businesses. This
disconnect makes creating a marketplace difficult and it’s hard for cross-industry
coordination of waste streams. Even those who are clearly dedicated to finding areas to
redirect produce waste find it difficult. The Food Bank of Central and Eastern had
41
contracts with local hog farmers to take the majority of their produce waste.
Unfortunately for them, that route dried up and they have been unable to find new
areas to direct the produce that they are unable to divert to the charities they support
(Crain 2015).
I did an interview Amy Brooks of Brooks Contractor that illuminates one information
bridge composters can provide those seeking to keep rejected produce shipments from
landfills. Ms. Brooks regularly takes calls from all around North Carolina from growers,
distributors and grocers who find themselves in custody of rejected shipments of
produce (Brooks 2015). Realizing that the increasing cost of transporting produce waste
to her facility may be a barrier for companies to choose composting versus sending
waste to a landfill, Ms. Brooks will actually encourage them to seek out a composter
that is closer to them. While Brooks may have the visibility that comes with being the
largest composter in the state, there are 11 class 3 composters in North Carolina (Class 3
composters are certified to handle food waste). She’ll actually provide them a contact
closer to where the waste is located and allow another composter to receive the
disposal fee. Brooks isn’t alone in her efforts to achieve visibility and scale for the
industry. There have been some efforts to remove these barriers- FindAComposter.com
allows composters to list their facility so would-be disposers can find them (“About
FindAComposter.com” 2010). Further, the North Carolina Department of Environment
and Natural Resources has created the North Carolina Waste Trader, where waste of all
kinds, not just rejected loads of produce, can be listed, bought and traded (“NC
Wastetrader” 2015). Still these barriers keep markets from being very efficient.
42
Figure 10: A screenshot of NC Waste Trader, an online marketplace where North Carolina companies can buy, sell
and trade bulk goods that might otherwise end up in a landfill. (Source: NC Wastetrader 2015)
One element of this barrier to information is scale. While some businesses are able to
accept major waste stream flows- Mark Langner’s MAYTime composting will have 4,000
– 6,000 tons in it’s Fletcher location at any given time (Langner 2015), that isn’t always
the case. Traci Nachtrab, the co-owner of Lucky 3 Farm, used to supply produce waste
to her hogs as part of their diets (Nachtrab 2015). When her supplier dried up, she was
unable to find another source to supplement the diets of her hogs. Harnessing produce
waste is an important way for small farmers to trim the costs of raising their hogs. She
advocates for a system in which small farmers, such as her operation, have better access
to produce waste like rejected shipments so that they can have the visibility they need
to let waste generators know they exist.
Transportation Divides and Connects the Waste Streams
As alluded to earlier in the discussion of agricultural supply chains, transportation has an
important role bringing fresh produce to market. Transportation is also crucial for
43
getting waste from a distribution facility, processor or farm to a disposal site. Waste
disposal is expensive- not only does a disposer pay a fee to transport the waste to
another location, but in the case of a landfill, there is also a tipping fee or gate fee. A
tipping fee is charge, usually on a weight or volume basis, for the right to dispose at a
location (“Landfill Tipping” 2014). Composters work on a similar business model to
landfills but have the added benefit of a revenue stream from the compost itself. In
order to incentivize organic matter to be diverted to composters rather than send to a
landfill, their tipping fees are generally much lower than that of a solid waste disposal
site. Composters I interviewed generally placed their tipping fees at $20/ton less (or
even lower (Brooks 2015)) than local landfills (Langner 2015) (Gallin 2015). The financial
incentive is there for diverting rejected shipments of produce to composters instead of
landfills.
Or it would be, if composting facilities were as prevalent as solid waste disposal
facilities. Statewide, there are only 11 facilities that are able to handle food waste.
Facility Name
The Asheville School
Warren Wilson College
Brooks Compost Facility
McGill Environmental Systems
Eastern Compost
Novozymes
Earth Farms
Guilford College
Caledonia Correctional Institution
Wallace Farm
UNC Charlotte
Food Waste
Composted (tons)
5.51
50.33
9416.09
1070.06
2825.91
41
8960
7.31
34.08
6500
0.16
Table 4: North Carolina’s 11 Class 3 composting facilities and the respective tonnage of food waste they took in
during 2013. (Data courtesy of Tony Gallagher of the NCDENR)
Many of these facilities aren’t designed to handle entire shipments of rejected produce.
Besides that, their locations are not evenly spread throughout the state, meaning that
44
agricultural waste generated
in certain areas will be
particularly expensive to
redirect away from landfills.
Figure 11: Locations of all North Carolina composting locations that
The cost incentives that
composted more than 100 tons of waste in 2013. (Source: Company
composters create by
websites).
charging lower tipping fees
for rejected produce are chipped away by increased transportation costs incurred
because the scarcity of major composters. Figures 12 and 13 show the cost effects of
altering the gap between landfill and compost tipping fees as well as if the cost-per-mile
freight hauling rate changes3.
Figure 12: As the gap between
tipping fees at composters
and landfills widen, waste
producers are incentivized to
drive longer distances to take
advantage of compost’s
cheaper fees.
3 These calculations are based on the assumption of 55,000 lbs of produce being hauled in on the truck. The cost per
mile used in Figure 14 is the most recent figure (February 2015) provided by Freight Rate Index
(FreightRateINdex.com) of $2.18637.
45
Figure 13: As the cost per mile
(CPM) of moving increases the
diverting food waste to
composters becomes more
problematic if they are far away.
Decisions, Decisions: Compost by Default
Clearly, sending food waste to a composter has environmental and, potentially, costsaving benefits, but composting actually occupies the lowest tier of the Food Recovery
Hierarchy. Rejected produce shipments should only be diverted to compost once they
have been deemed unfit for human and animal consumption. But there are business
forces at work that make composting a smart alternative, even though it is a cost stream
to dispose of the produce.
It’s simply easier to design a food waste redirection program around a simple strategy.
Jeff Laughead, Food Lion’s Sustainability Manager explains that having a multi-tiered
redirection strategy is much more difficult than simply directing all the waste to
compost (Laughead 2015). It requires complex decision criteria that make logistics more
difficult and more costly. Not all businesses are willing to make this commitment, so
compost provides a better alternative that landfills that requires less effort to redirect
rejected shipments from landfills.
THE ROLE OF THE STATE: A VALUE CHAIN APPROACH
While this report focuses on the agricultural supply chain and how it generates these
rejected shipments of produce, there are significant stakeholders outside the supply
chain. Two in particular- state and local governments – impact how waste is handled in
46
North Carolina and help create increased opportunities for diverting these rejected
shipments from landfills. While not directly involved in the supply chain, these
governments impact how produce will flow through these waste streams. A value chain
includes both those actors who are a direct part of the supply chain but also those that
whose works impact the supply chain- research and development, legislators and so on.
In North Carolina, the party most involved with how waste gets handled is the North
Carolina Department of the Environment and Natural Resources (NCDENR).
In a series of interviews with members of the NCDENR, a clearer picture of the state’s
activities and influence developed. The state is taking a multi-pronged approach to
increasing the amount of food being diverted from landfills. Scott Mouw, the North
Carolina State Recycling Director, is part of a team working with businesses at all stages
of the food waste diversion effort (Mouw 2015). Tony Gallagher is working on a more
comprehensive understanding of composting activities in the state (Gallagher 2015). By
aggregating data from the state’s food composters, the first statewide picture of
composting can be painted and more effective redirection systems created. Mr.
Gallagher is looking outside composting to see how composting fits in to other diversion
activities. Tom Rhodes manages the aforementioned NC Waste Trader webpage. Waste
Trader allows businesses to post bulk items, at no cost, on their webpage where they
can sell or donate various commodities in order to avoid sending them off to a landfill
(Rhodes 2015).
Alongside state governments, local governments can play a strong role in helping to
divert food waste from landfills and find more valuable uses for rejected produce
shipments. Blair Pollock, a solid waste planner with Orange County Solid Waste
Department, thinks that local governments can play a strong role in helping reduce any
food waste that ends up in landfills. He also recognizes that redirecting waste is a
difficult battle with consumers who are getting increasingly demanding (Pollock 2015).
47
SUMMARY OF RESULTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Gathering together the different opportunities for diversion of rejected produce
shipments from landfills that still have some positive value provides context to the Food
Waste Hierarchy being put in to practice. There are a number of decisions that a waste
manager must make in deciding which produce shipment redirection strategy (or
combination of strategies) is right for their company. While the Food Recovery
Hierarchy creates a model for maximizing the positive value to humans, it does not
account for the business difficulties that such an elaborate diversion strategy entails.
Waste managers must decide on the strategy that is best for them.
Besides the cost and labor requirements of placing such a policy in place, there are
barriers to information, difficulties posed by scale and location as well as sensitivities to
fluctuations in transportation. Table 5 condenses these ideas into a pros/cons list that
explains why produce diversion streams work in some instances and have been less
successful. It also provides more insight into how the original hypothesis- that rejected
produce diversion can be costly, risky and difficult at smaller scales- has evolved
throughout the research process. Not only is there the potential for financial costs
associated with waste diversion, but also sacrifices in the form of time being spent to
locate each waste stream. Additionally, while some excess is predictable because of
seasonal growing patterns, individual shipments are difficult if not impossible to plan in
advance for, meaning that a strategy purely relying on waste can be risky for those who
make a living based on waste diversion. It also became apparent in the research that the
cognitive disconnect between waste producers and users of produce waste in how they
view these rejected shipments causes a misalignment of priorities. Producers simply
want the waste off their hands, as quickly as possible and may not be willing to go the
extra effort to find alternative uses for what they feel has little or not value.
48
Pros/Cons of Produce Redirection Activities in North Carolina
Redirection
Goal/Method
Pros
Cons
Valuation of
Rejected Produce
Source Reduction
Processed Goods


Value creation
Portfolio
diversification


Capital Investment
Requirements
New market entry

Profitable

Cost-based pricing;
recover value of
produce and
transportation
(production cost
recovering)
Tax break not to
exceed the value of
produce donated
(some ability to
recover production
cost)
Feed People
Salvage
Grocer/Terminal
Market
Charities

Highest valuation
for rejected
produce

Limited legal risk
for if spoiled
Positive PR
Likelihood charity
rejects is low





Limited Locations
Legal risk if spoiled
Buyer location can
be costly

For smaller
charities, scale
Logistic capabilities
Subject to
seasonality



Feed Animals

Hog/Cattle Farms

Can mix with other
non-meat waste
streams to
maximize diversion
Some nutritional
value returned to
humans



Scale
Difficult to locate
Must align with
animal dietary
needs


Limited Locations
Minimal nutritional
value returned to
humans

No tipping fee or
very small tipping
fee (cost reducing)

Tipping fee
significantly lower
than landfill (cost
reducing)

Tipping fee similar
to or slightly lower
than landfill
(potential cost
reduction)
Composting

Composting

Costs of
preparation and
processing low
Can mix with most
other food-waste
stream
Anaerobic Digester

Digestion

Can vertically
integrate with
composting
Provide green
energy to farm or
to the grid

Lengthy payback
period for projects
Table 5: Actions being taken in North Carolina to divert reject produce shipments to other value-add
activities
49
Representative Produce Waste Chains
While the above table elaborates on the opportunities and barriers of each diversion
stream, it doesn’t organize the opportunities into a very useful framework. Using the
Food Recovery Hierarchy as a guide, this information can be transformed into a tool that
North Carolina growers and grocers alike can use to find the optimal waste diversion
solution for their organization.
Food Waste Champions
Food Recovery Champions are the North Carolinian embodiment of the Hierarchy. They
are interested in maximizing not only the amount of fresh produce waste that they are
able to divert from landfills, but also focus on opportunities to get positive or neutral
returns out of the produce shipments that get redirected. Businesses like Cottle farms
operate in this spirit, directing excess or rejected produce in to value-creating ideas like
transforming berries in to smoothies. Champions are willing and able to invest the time
and resources in ensuring that their products are still safe for human consumption. In
the case where the processing is not in house (as with Cottle Farms), they are also
willing to invest the time to build networks, making the connections necessary to find
potential buyers. Further, they pursue opportunities such as terminal markets and
salvage grocers, which can allow them to recover the costs of growing and transporting
their produce. In these waste streams, what doesn’t get sold will trickle down to
charitable organizations, then livestock farms and finally, whatever is unfit for
consumption ends up at a composter or anaerobic digestion facility.
50
Figure 14: Food Recovery Champions seek to get the maximum amount of financial gain out of
every shipment of produce and are willing to invest the time and money to ensure they are getting
higher returns on the goods they produce.
Food Waste Humanitarians
Similar to the Food Recovery Champions, Food Recovery Humanitarians still have a food
waste diversion strategy that maximizes how much fresh produce feeds humans.
However, instead of committing the time and resources associated with finding buyers
for rejected shipments, these businesses divert waste to charitable organizations. They
may choose this route for a number of reasons: they are protected from legal and
financial risks by Good Samaritan laws, in case some donations may have spoiled; they
can increase their goodwill within the community; financial incentives from tax writeoffs may provide more financial benefit than finding a buyer when the value of the
produce is low and the transaction costs are high.
51
Figure 15: Food Recovery Humanitarians similarly maximize the amount of food that reaches
humans, but default to charitable donations instead of trying to find markets to sell in to.
Composters by Default
By defaulting to sending rejected shipments of produce to a composter, a business can
not only further insulate itself from legal risk associated with feeding humans and
animals, but also find a one-size-fits-all solution. The capacity for composting is available
to accept an increasing number of produce shipments. Composters by Default can enjoy
lower tipping fees than at landfills- cutting costs- while also being able to combine waste
streams. It removes much of the decision making from the waste diversion process and
allows growers and grocers to spend more time focusing on core business functions and
less time worrying about a by-product of doing business.
52
Figure 16: By selecting the one-size-fits-all approach to diverting produce waste, growers and
grocers can quickly get produce waste off their hands, usually at a lower cost than dumping in a
landfill.
Achieving Scale Through Cooperation
A common theme among the composters, hog farmers, charities and even produce
growers that I interviewed was a frustration in finding each other. Hog farmers would
love to find more opportunities to cut their costs by using food waste; composters need
a steady stream of food waste inputs for their business to even exist; and charities rely
on a steady stream of healthy, fresh produce to provide a balanced diet to those
families that need it the most. Similarly, growers would benefit from being able to sell
rejected shipments to secondary markets or at the very least, cut their cost by taking
advantage of lower tipping fees at composters or hog farms.
The information barriers that have kept waste producers from efficiently accessing
waste diversion streams can be mitigated through industry cooperation and trade
associations. The success of Ham Produce in helping other farmers derive more value
from their crops has been spurred on by the actions of the North Carolina Sweet Potato
53
Commission. Similar trade organizations like the North Carolina Apple Growers
Association, North Carolina Watermelon Association and other produce growing
associations can be powerful allies in helping provide the benefits of scale to even small
farmers. By prioritizing waste diversion and locating a network of diversion
opportunities, these trade associations can provide the scale that small farmers need to
overcome these barriers to information.
Similarly, waste diversion streams can leverage their own trade associations to make
sure that those that produce these rejected shipments can overcome their own
information barriers. The North Carolina Pork Council, for instance, describes its mission
as “To promote and educate to ensure a socially responsible and profitable North
Carolina pork industry.” (“About NCPC” 2006). Hog farmers that I interviewed expressed
an interest in making food waste- particularly shipments of rejected produce- a greater
part of their operation but found it difficult to find and maintain these supply chains.
Leveraging the scale of their own trade association will give these farmers greater
visibility as well as greater access.
Local and State Agents of Change
While economic opportunities will likely be the driving force behind the evolution of
how rejected shipments of produce are handled in the future, the state can play a key
role it shaping the business landscape. Tax breaks to companies who donate rejected
shipments to charities provide economic incentive for firms to engage in this strategy.
Similar incentives would likely increase the amount of food diverted to feed livestock,
compost and dump at anaerobic digesters. The other route the state (and local)
governments could take would be making it more difficult to dispose of food waste.
Massachusetts recently took a huge leap forward in reducing food waste in its state by
passing a state-wide commercial food ban, which requires commercial facilities to that
produce more than one ton of food waste per week to ship the excess to an anaerobic
digestion facility (“Commercial Food Waste Disposal Ban” 2014). Whichever route (or
54
combination of routes) that the state pursues, providing the right market conditions will
be crucial to diverting more of these rejected loads from landfills.
SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
1.
Tracking rejected produce loads from the point of rejection
For this project, I used data for rejected produce shipments originating in North
Carolina as a proxy for how much produce waste is being created in North Carolina. This
is because there is no actual statewide system for tracking this data. Some of the data is
stored where it is rejected- where it winds up is with the supplier who decides whether
to redirect it or not. One area of future research would be using barcodes or radiofrequency identification (RFID) devices to track rejected produce shipments as they
make their way through the rejection streams. This would give additional insight in to
how grocers, growers and transporters can work together to help identify opportunities
to redirect rejected produce
2.
Building a database for waste recipients to find waste creators
There are resources such as FindAComposter.com which can help route produce to
composters. The North Carolina Pork Council provides a single location where hog
farmers could be found quickly. Raleigh’s NC Farmer’s Market is a very visible terminal
market where wholesome produce without a buyer can be sold at a discount to any
wishing to buy bulk. What there is a lack of is a one-stop source for allowing the
possessor of a rejected produce shipment to see all the options available to them. While
grocers like Food Lion are creating a multi-tiered strategy to divert their food waste
from landfills, they have the benefits of scale – contacts, man-hours, and logistical
capabilities- and can build out these complex networks. Smaller players like small- and
medium-sized farmers may not have the same access to these channels. From the
55
perspective of the waste users, small hog farmers could have tough times getting in
front of major growers. Charity organizations that are smaller that the Food Bank of
Eastern and Central North Carolina may not have the facilities or distribution network to
handle full truckloads of produce all the time but could handle half-loads or some
seasonal overflows.
56
APPENDIX A: WASTE STREAMS QUESTIONNAIRE
Name:
Title:
Organization:
1.
How would your organization be able to use loads of fresh produce that had
been rejected in the agricultural supply chain? (FOR HUMAN/ANMIAL
CONSUMPTION) Assume that the produce is healthy enough for the activity and
that safety is not a major concern.
2.
Do you already use fresh produce that has been rejected somewhere in the
supply chain? If so, can you provide some examples?
3.
What barriers exist to you being able to use more fresh produce in your
operations?
4.
What incentives would help you use more fresh produce?
5.
What concerns do you have about making fresh produce a larger part of your
procurement strategy?
Hog Farmers (This section asked only to hog farmers)
1.
What type of diet do you feed your hogs?
a. How did you make this decision? Scale?
2.
What other practices highlight animal welfare?
3.
Have you heard about hog farmers using waste streams for hog food?
4.
What issues could you see arising from this? Safety concerns? Supply
consistency?
5.
What benefits could you see arising from this?
a.
Nutritional benefits?
i.
Versus pasture?
ii.
Versus industrial?
6.
Cost benefits? What would the average price of feed be?
7.
Can you imagine other logistical problems arising?
57
Composters (This section asked only to commercial composters)
1.
Do you receive entire shipments of fresh produce that has been rejected
somewhere in the supply chain?
a. If so, do you go out and try to find new customers or do they actively
seek out composting opportunities?
2.
How does dumping at your site compare to using a landfill from a cost
consideration?
3.
How important are relationships with local and state governments in helping
divert waste? What kinds of resources are available?
4.
Do you think there is enough visibility for composting operations in North
Carolina? Could there be more done to inform dumpers of the benefits
(environmental, economic) of composting? If so, what?
5.
Why do you think industrial composting isn’t a more common outlet for fresh
produce waste?
Food Waste Producers (This section asked only to growers and grocers)
1.
What types of value added activities have you heard of where truckloads of fresh
produce have been diverted from landfills to other activities?
2.
What activities are YOU actively participating in that helps divert produce waste
from landfills?
3.
In your opinion, what market forces are most responsible for creating fresh
produce waste?
Non-profit Food Distributors (This section asked only to growers and grocers)
1.
How much fresh produce does your organization receive annually?
a. What are the major sources of donation?
2.
How much fresh produce do you turn away?
a. What are the major reasons you might reject it?
3.
How do you work around seasonality of supply? Does this increase the amount
of produce that you will turn away?
58
APPENDIX B: STATE/LOCAL GOVERNMENTS QUESTIONNAIRE
Name:
Title:
Organization:
1.
How big of a problem is food waste in general in North Carolina?
2.
Speaking more specifically about fresh produce waste, how large of a problem is
this one element of food waste?
3.
What steps are your division taking to reduce the amount of fresh produce
waste is reaching landfills?
4.
What resources are available to those that create produce waste to find
diversion streams? Similarly, what resources are available for those working in
diversions streams to access those that generate the waste?
5.
How have you interacted with private businesses that manage and process food
waste? What role does capacity building play in your current mission?
59
WORKS CITED
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http://www.ncpork.org/pages/about_ncpc/about_ncpc.jsp.
“About the FSA.” 2015. http://www.food.gov.uk/about-us/about-the-fsa.
“About the FWRA.” 2013. The Foor Waste Redution Alliance.
http://www.foodwastealliance.org/about-us-page-2/.
“About Us.” 2015. NCSweetPotatoes.com. http://www.ncsweetpotatoes.com/aboutus/.
“About Us - 404 Foods - Food Closeouts and Liquidation.” 2014.
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http://www.c2es.org/technology/factsheet/anaerobic-digesters#_ednref24.
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pdf.
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