Author: Charlotte Aschim

Matsentralen Oslo is the Oslo branch of Matsentralen, a Norwegian food bank network that aims to fight food waste. Matsentralen Oslo receives food from 50 suppliers. It then distributes this food to more than 120 hunger relief charities in Oslo. In 2017, they redistributed 1270 tonnes of food, which is equal to 2.5 million meals.

A large quantity of food inventory, however, came with challenges in recording inventory accurately and quickly. All their processes were manual and required excessive paperwork. 

We saw this as an opportunity for joint value-creation. TotalCtrl created two applications specifically for Matsentralen Oslo. They served as our pilot customer for our inventory solution for food banks.

For Matsentralen Oslo, this reduced time spent on inventory management. Further, it led to significant food waste savings.

Moving From Pen & Paper to Digital 

Before using TotalCtrl’s solution, Matsentralen Oslo recorded food donations on paper without details. They didn’t specify the exact amount, weight, and brand of food they received.

Charities determined the number of designated products during checkout by weighing each pallet and recording its weight. They disregarded the contents of the pallet.

All transactions were manually recorded in Microsoft Excel by one employee. Thus, inventory management had many inaccuracies across its entire process.

The food waste management system was also faulty. Matsentralen Oslo had to keep many food products in their inventory to satisfy demand. However, most foods have a limited shelf life.

Thus, they had to get rid of their inventory before food expired to avoid food waste. Sometimes, the fluctuating nature of demand did not accommodate this.

The main challenges at Matsentralen Oslo can be boiled down to:

1. Inaccuracies in recording inventory
2. Manual distribution and record-keeping processes 
3. Wasted time
4. Unpredictable supply and demand 

By collaborating with TotalCtrl, Matsentralen Oslo was able to digitize its inventory management system, saving time and money.

TotalCtrl’s Food Bank Solution For Matsentralen Oslo

To address inventory management challenges across the entire supply chain, we created two digital applications, one for Matsentralen Oslo and one for the charities.

The Matsentralen app helped add products to inventory through scanning or manually. This gave Matsentralen an accurate and holistic view of their inventory. Matsentralen also had access to a web dashboard, where they could edit information on charities and suppliers and download data in the form of a spreadsheet.

The charity app allowed charities to view Matsentralen’s full inventory before visiting the warehouse. Charity employees and volunteers added items placed in inventory by Matsentralen Oslo into the charity’s own shopping cart when they picked them up. Thus, the products were automatically deducted from Matsentralen’s inventory, thus digitizing the entire process. 

Matsentralen Oslo Saved Time and Money

Digitizing their entire inventory benefited Matsentralen in several ways. Thanks to TotalCtrl, they could:

• Record their inventory with precision
• Save €1,781 (NOK 17,700) each year in manual time
• Allow charities to browse their inventory and select products digitally
• Identify trends of supply and demand based on collected data
• Insert expiration dates for the products in inventory
• Save 1,428 tonnes of food, which is equivalent to 2,856,000 more meals, and 4,284 tonnes of CO2 each year
• Save €1,317 (NOK 13,100) in paper expenditure each year.

The solution had an initial set up fee of €3999 and a monthly fee of €39. Thus, the investment pays for itself in less than a two-year time.

TotalCtrl Can Help Make Food Banks Waste-Free 

“As a result of the high number of products and a great deal of manual handling of the inventory, we contacted TotalCtrl for assistance with the automation of processes.”

Cristiano Aubert. CEO, Matsentralen Oslo

The food banks’ solution can easily be implemented in other Matsentralens in Norway. The challenges food banks face are similar and the TotalCtrl solution can help digitize their inventories. By moving from manual handling of goods to digital control and automation, all food banks can save time, money, and help with the fight against food waste.

Imagine going to the grocery store, buying three shopping bags with food, then dropping one of them on the way, and not going back for it.

Crazy, right?

Well, that’s exactly how much food we are wasting daily. 

Food waste costs the world about 750 billion USD per year. And young people (age 18-34) waste more food than any other demographic. 

Food waste not only hurts your pockets but is extremely harmful to the environment. But there are measures you can take to minimize it.

In this article, we’ll cover:

• Why Do Students Waste Food?
• 17+ Tips To Reduce Food Waste as a Student

Why Do Students Waste Food?

Throwing away food costs your students pockets around 6.9 USD per week. That’s 358 USD per year!

The most commonly wasted foods for students are leftover meals, fresh vegetables and fruit, bread, and chips.

And some of the main reasons students throw food away are:

• Trying something new and you don’t like it
• Cooking portions that are too big
• Throwing away leftovers
• Food expires before you get to cook it

That’s normal. You’re probably used to home-cooked meals and your family taking care of all of the leftovers. Now that you’ve moved out on your own, you sometimes don’t have access to a kitchen and have a limited budget.

You might not even know how to cook or when to eat. In the next section, we’ll offer some tips to help.

17+ Tips to Reduce Student Food Waste

You might feel lost, but you can quickly get control of your food. You just need a bit more knowledge on how to store food effectively, how to use leftovers, and how to control your food choices and reduce your student food waste.

#1 – Store and organize your food 

Putting food in a place that isn’t visible makes you forget you even have it. So make sure everything in your fridge or pantry is organized and visible.

When you get new groceries, bring all the old things in front and put all the newly purchased items in the back. 

This way, you’ll be more likely to eat food that expires sooner.

#2 – Seal food properly 

Did you open a pack of chicken breasts and only used one or two?

Usually, the rest of the chicken starts smelling pretty fast.

This is why sealing your food is super important. Wrap unused chicken, fish, or steak and secure it with food clips. Alternatively, you can put it in containers or Tupperware.

#3 – Prepare portion sizes correctly

Before you start cooking, get a feeling of how many people will be eating. You’ll be tempted to make excess food. 

Don’t!

If you’re overcooking, you increase the likelihood that you’ll waste your food. You might then be tempted to throw the excess food away or dispose of the next-day leftovers.

#4 – Switch up breakfast

You can substitute your bowl of cereal or eggs with some of the leftovers from the previous day. Or, you can put it in a Tupperware and take it with you for lunch.

You do not end up throwing your leftovers. You also save cooking time, lunch money, and some of your breakfast food.

#5 – Cook with leftovers

Got a bunch of cooked veggies or leftover rice? Throw them together in a pan. 

You can cook awesome meals with your leftover food. Anything from paella with a twist to a leftover-food omelet, to fried rice works.

There’s plenty of room to be creative!

#6 – Freeze bread

You got a huge loaf of fresh bread that you can’t eat before it goes bad?

Just throw it in the freezer!

Then take it out and throw it in the oven or let it defrost when you decide to have it. After reheating, the bread tastes as fresh as the first day. 

#7 – Buy more frozen foods

It’s nice to support local farmers and to eat fresh foods. But if you end up throwing away most of your vegetables or fruits because you didn’t get to eat that in time….then it’s time to rethink your strategy.

Frozen food is cheaper and offers more variety. You can get several bean types and various vegetables in one pack. And they take years to go bad!

#8 – Don’t buy food in bulk

Some foods, like potatoes and carrots, don’t expire. So it’s okay if you buy them in bulk.

However, if you buy 1 KG of chicken and don’t freeze it, things can turn sour fast. To save your fresh food from expiring, just buy less of it at a time.

#9 – Check your fridge temperature

Your fridge temperature should be below 4 degrees Celsius (40 degrees Fahrenheit). And your freezer should not exceed -18 degrees Celcius (0 degrees Fahrenheit). 

Get a simple fridge thermometer to monitor these thresholds. 

The shelves in the fridge also vary in their temperatures. Store different types of food on separate shelves to make sure they don’t expire.

#10 – Understand expiration dates

There are many ways the store, the factory, or the distribution facility put in the expiration date in the food packaging. However, there are three main wordings:

• “Best before” means that the food won’t be harmful if you consume it after the shown date. But it’s best to consume it before the expiration date for the best taste and quality. Be careful with eggs, because they can develop salmonella if a long time passes.
• “Exp.” means that the food will expire after the given date. However, sometimes, food might be okay to cook with even if expired. Go for the “look, smell, taste” test. Only throw away food if it looks and smells expired.
• “Display until” or “Disp” is an indicator for grocery store clerks. Don’t pay much attention to it.

Understanding what these expiration dates mean can help you prioritize when you eat food. So, if at some point your choice is between food that expires tomorrow and food that is best before tomorrow, go for the first one.

#11 – Take home restaurant leftovers

There’s nothing wrong with asking your waiter to pack up your leftovers in a container and take it home. The food is yours once it’s prepared!

The restaurant avoids food waste and you get an extra meal or side dish from food that you’ve already paid for.

#12 – Donate food you don’t want anymore

You might have a bunch of cans and other foods sitting around the house. They haven’t expired yet. And you’re probably tempted to throw them away since you don’t plan on eating them anytime soon.

Considering donating them instead. There should be food banks in your area or local organizations that give the food to the less fortunate. Food isn’t wasted but instead given to someone who needs it. There are 135 million of these people throughout the world.

#13 – Plan your meals

At the beginning of the week, create a diary with all the meals you plan to eat that week. Write down a shopping list for all those meals and only buy those ingredients.

Meal planning makes it easier for you to know what and how you’re eating and eliminates stress and time spent on thinking and cooking. It also ensures that you’re not buying food that you won’t use.

#14 – Eat less meat

Meat is extremely harmful to the environment. Each kilogram of beef, for example, produces 17 kg of CO2. Eating more plant-based foods is a sure way to reduce your carbon footprint.

#15 – Find recipes online

There are thousands of online recipe websites out there that you can use for inspiration. And some are easy and fast to make. 

Online recipes also show all ingredients, which adds variety to your meal and gives you inspiration for your shopping list.

#16 – Use food waste applications

There are mobile apps out there that make planning and cooking meals super easy. Total Ctrl Home is probably the most convenient.

The app allows you to get alerts before food expires and create shopping lists. It also gives you recipe recommendations based on the food you have at hand.

#17 – Spread the word

Inform your friends and family about all the negative effects of food waste. Share posts and updates on your social media, so that everyone can participate.

The more people know about how unnecessary and avoidable food waste is, the closer we are to our sustainable development goal of halving the world’s food waste.

Wrapping Up Student Food Waste

We discussed many tips on this article about how to reduce student food waste. However, you don’t have to dive into all of them at once.

Start with small changes, like eating leftovers, downloading TotalCtrl Home, and organizing your fridge. Then work your way through meal planning and educating others about the threat of wasted food.

By working together to change our habits, we can all make an impact towards a waste-free world.

We’ve all been there:

Your chicken or vegetables go bad in the fridge. Or maybe you’ve cooked a bigger portion than you intended, and you know it won’t taste good again the next day.

There is a quick solution. Just throw it away. 

Now imagine that happening with billions of people around the world.

And just like that, through a mindless everyday task, you have all contributed to one of the biggest problems in the world: food waste.

But how big of a problem is it? Is it as simple as people throwing food in the garbage?

We’ll cover all things related to food waste in this article. Read on to learn more about:

• What is Food Waste and Food Loss (With Examples)
• Why Food Waste is a Problem (15+ Food Waste Statistics)
• What Are the Causes of Food Waste?
• How You Can Help to Reduce Food Waste

What is Food Waste and Food Loss (With Examples)

Food waste is essentially food that was produced or harvested for consumption but is instead thrown away.

When food spoils or expires, it’s not suitable for consumption anymore and gets thrown away. That’s food loss.

So, when you go to a restaurant and don’t finish your plate, the cook will throw your food away. And that’s food waste. Whereas if your broccoli start smelling in the fridge, that’s food loss.

Although food waste management experts use two different terms, both food waste and food loss contribute to food waste.

All the inedible parts of your food, however, like leaves or shells, are not counted. This is because they don’t fit the definition of food waste as “intended for consumption”. 

We should note here that both waste and loss happen throughout the entire supply chain. So, there can be waste from the farmer, the restaurant that’s cooking your food, or the grocery store. 

The waste that comes from supply chains was put in the spotlight during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since restaurants, canteens, and cafes were closed, all their food inventory went to waste. Thus, they contributed to the creation of already huge mountains of wasted food.

Why Food Waste is a Problem (10+ Food Waste Statistics)

Now that we’ve touched base on what food waste is, let’s discuss how it is harmful.

You may be aware of some of the negative effects of food landfills in terms of space use, but the issues run deeper than you think.

Two of the biggest concerns associated with food waste are CO2 emissions and water waste.

Food Waste Causes Carbon Emissions

Each kilogram of waste contributes to the release of 2.5 kg of CO2 into the atmosphere. And globally, we throw away around 1.3 billion tons of food every year. That’s one-third of the world’s entire food production.

If you’re numerically-savvy, you’ve probably done the math: that’s 3.25 billion tones of CO2 emissions per year. By comparison, the CO2 released from all air conditioning devices around the world amounts to 2 billion tons per year. 

Food Waste Leads to Water Waste and Ethical Concerns

As for water waste, 1.3 billion tons of wasted food leads to 45 trillion gallons of water being lost every year. Water is used throughout the entirety of the food production cycle, and when we throw food away, we also waste the water used to produce it.

Beyond the environmental and economic implications, wasting food can also be regarded as immoral. That’s because about 8.9% of the world’s population is hungry or malnourished. Parts of the food we are wasting can go to the 135 million people suffering from acute hunger.

Food Waste is a Priority for Sustainable Development Goals

Here are some other mind-blowing statistics:

• The water used each year to produce food that is lost or wasted is equivalent to the annual flow of Russia’s Volga River, or three times the volume of Lake Geneva.
• 28% of the world’s agricultural land produces food that is wasted or lost.
• The economic impact of food waste is calculated at about 750 billion USD per year.
• In 2020 alone, we have already wasted around 892 million tonnes of food.

The problem is so big that the United Nations set a waste reduction goal as part of their Sustainable Development Goals. The objective is to “halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer level, and reduce food losses along production and supply chains by 2030“.

What Are the Causes of Food Waste?

As we’ve already mentioned, some of the food is wasted before it ever reaches you. 

Food waste across the supply chain is more prominent in underdeveloped countries. Whereas in developed countries, most of the waste happens at the retailer and consumer level.

Let’s look more in-depth at some of these different causes.

#1 – Never being harvested

25% of a farmer’s produce is left to rot in the field. This is mainly due to imperfections in the production process. 

Consumers and retailers have become increasingly picky about the quality and look of their fruits and vegetables. So, if the product has some imperfections, farmers tend to disregard it completely and let it rot in the fields. 

A decrease in demand can also lead to food never leaving the farm. The COVID-19 pandemic, for example, led to a huge drop in demand for fresh fruits and vegetables, both by consumers and grocery stores and restaurants. 

So farmers had to let their produce go and not harvest it, leading to tons of wasted food.

#2 – Damaged on the road

Transporting food is harder and more difficult to do than you think. Refrigeration units and big freezers are put in place. But sometimes taking food from point A to point B can damage it in various ways:

• Refrigeration units can break or deregulate temperature on the way. With no one to check on their status, they can quickly spoil.
• Food can smash into each other or when transported through a bumpy road. This can lead to the packaging of packed foods to break, fruit and vegetables to be damaged, and lots of food to fall out of their containers.
• Blame the weather! If it ends up being too hot or too cold that day, food that’s not in temperature-controlled containers can end up being spoiled. 

#3 – Thrown out by inspection

Most food never goes directly to grocery stores or restaurants. It usually stops at a distribution facility. There, designated inspectors look at its quality and look for any imperfections.

Even if the food has been lucky enough to survive the long road to their destination, it is now up to facility inspectors to determine its fate if it has suffered a bit of damage.

Once the food inspectors have removed all the unlucky foods, they’ll now be put in another truck to be transported to their next destination.

#4 – Discarded by grocery stores and restaurants

During transportation from the distribution facility to the retailers or restaurants, a heap of damage can happen, which we’ve already discussed.

So, once food reaches its (almost) final destination, it’s also inspected by the grocery stores and restaurants. They throw out any potentially damaged food, which might have been unhealthy to eat, spoiled, or overripen. 

Once they’re up for sale in grocery stores, some of them might end up not being purchased by customers before their expiration dates, which leads to food loss.

The food bought by restaurants suffers a similar fate. Restaurants throw away some of the food that expires before serving to customers. And all of the customers’ unfinished meals go in the trashcan too.

#5 – Thrown away by end customers

And now we get to you. As a food purchaser and consumer, you are the end of the chain. However, don’t underestimate your impact.

Imagine that only a portion of the food makes it to your table, once it’s been filtered through the supply chain. And then you end up wasting some of that food as well.

By wasting food, you’re contributing to a large problem, which is threatening our water resources and the quality of air in our environment.

How You Can Help

By now, you should be aware of what food waste is, the scope of the problem, and who is causing it. Luckily, some companies are addressing this issue at all levels, and TotalCtrl is at the forefront of that initiative.

We have created food waste solutions for municipalities, restaurants, and for you, the consumer. 

By downloading TotalCtrl Home, you can dramatically reduce the amount of waste you produce. You get control over your food inventory, get expiration date alerts, and customized recipes based on the food you have on your fridge and your pantry.

If you want to be part of the change, head on over to the App Store or Google Play and download TotalCtrl Home for free!

“We experience TotalCtrl as an extremely innovative technology solution. In just 4 months we’ve seen a 5% increase in sales through our app. We are looking forward to continuing the good cooperation!”

Roy Snapa
CEO, Handleriet.no

Increase in Sales

The average shopping cart before TotalCtrl was 1,100 NOK. After TotalCtrl, the average shopping cart was 1,219 NOK.

That’s a 10.82% increase in sales.

Digitized Recipes

Handleriet had around 300 recipes that they wanted to digitize. Their goal was to make sure they could help their customers buy products via recipes and get suggestions on recipes based on inventory. We digitized Handleriet.no’s recipes and added an additional 3,600 recipes.

The app featured a total of 4,000 recipes.

Reduced Food Waste

Handleriet’s app users:

• created recurring shopping lists and quickly ordered items they regularly consumed
• viewed all the items they purchased through the app and entered expiration dates for those items
• received notifications before the products’ expiration date
• created recipes based on the food they had at home

Stop Losing Time and Money on Food Waste

From a simple tool to a revolutionary technology: our solution is ranked as one of the world’s most innovative by Retail Insider. And we’ve been named one of Europe’s most inspiring food waste changemakers by the European Food Waste Innovation Network.

Food waste is one of the fastest-growing problems around the world. It is relatively a small issue as compared to others but the amount of food wasted is on a large scale. It is estimated that 1.3 billion tonnes of food are wasted globally, out of which 40 percent comes from restaurants and other food businesses.

According to the case studies held by Champions 123, investing money for reducing food waste at your restaurant can help them make more money.

Champions 123 reviewed 114 restaurants from 12 countries and they found that nearly every restaurant gets a positive return, with an average saving $7 for every $1 invested in preventing food waste at their restaurant’s kitchen.

The report also found:

In the first year, the restaurants reduced their kitchens food waste by 26 percent on average, and over 75 percent of restaurants recouped their investment. And in two years, 89 percent of restaurants recouped their investment.

Every site has its total investment below $20k.

The figure comes from small restaurants with annual sales of $400,000, all the way up to multi-million-dollar restaurants with annual sales of $17.3 million. The report explains the kinds of investments they did and how they benefited financially.

Source:  Champions 123: Business Case for Reducing