October 27, 2022
The number of hungry people in the world has grown slowly since 2014, and tons of food are wasted and/or lost every day, so it is imperative to reduce food loss and waste. In 2019, the 74th United Nations General Assembly established September 29 as the "International Food Loss and Waste Publicity Day" to promote the international community to accelerate implementation and reduce food loss and waste.
The global food waste figures are alarming
Globally, about 14% of grain is lost from harvest to retail.
It is estimated that 17% of the world's total grain output is wasted (11% from households, 5% from catering services and 2% from retail).
Food loss and waste account for 38% of the total energy use of the global food system.
Anti Food Waste Act
Influenced by multiple factors, such as the climate crisis, the COVID-19, economic turbulence and military conflict, the global food security problem has become increasingly prominent. More and more governments and relevant organizations have begun to pay attention to how to strengthen the resilience of the food system to help millions of people suffering from hunger around the world.
It is the traditional virtue of the Chinese nation to save food and refuse to waste. In order to prevent food waste and ensure national food security, the Anti Food Waste Law of the People's Republic of China was voted and implemented last year. The Fourteenth Five Year Plan and the Outline of Vision Goals for 2035 put forward to effectively reduce the losses in grain production, storage, transportation and processing, and carry out grain saving actions.
Packaging: Make the food system more sustainable
As a global well-known supplier of sustainable packaging solutions, Chengda Group believes that sustainable food packaging plays an important role in ensuring food supply and security, and helps to enhance the resilience of the global food system.
Packaging can help realize the continuous operation of the process of transporting grain from farmland to table, and make it easier to obtain and more affordable.
By providing protection from chemical, biological and physical external influences, packaging can delay food deterioration, retain processing results, extend shelf life, and maintain or improve food quality and safety. The longer the storage period of grain, the higher its value in the face of crisis.
Packaging can ensure that the resources used to produce food and the resulting carbon footprint will not be wasted, minimizing the environmental impact. The environmental benefits of avoiding food waste are usually 5-10 times higher than the environmental costs of packaging.
Recently, the "Think Circle" platform launched by Chengda Group came to China for the first time and held a discussion on "packaging: making the food system more sustainable" with the surging research institute concerned about the development process of Chinese cities. This activity was also supported by the Circular Economy Professional Committee of China Packaging Federation.
In this discussion, Zhu Dajian, a distinguished professor of Tongji University and the director of the Institute of Sustainable Development and Management, and other experts shared their observations, research and practice on how to view the role of food packaging in China's food system, how food packaging should respond to the challenges posed by urban development and the external environment, and how to affect urban life and the transformation of green and low-carbon.
Conclusion
Although the package is small, there are big articles about environmental protection and sustainability hidden in small details. The relationship between China, cities, low carbon, culture and food packaging is complementary and interdependent. Chengda hopes to establish an interactive partnership with our customers and suppliers to maximize the protection of the entire value chain from the farm to the table, reduce food waste, and contribute to resource conservation, circular economy and food security through better and smarter packaging.