Abstract
Food waste is a significant contemporary issue in the UK, with substantial environmental, social and economic costs to the nation. Whilst efforts to reduce food waste are laudable, a significant proportion of food and drink manufacturer waste is unavoidable. On the one hand, there is a drive from industry to reclaim as much value from this waste as possible, for example, by conversion to valuable products in what is known as “valorisation”. At the same time, growing social and legislative pressures mean that any attempts to valorise food waste must be performed in a sustainable manner. However, for every company and its specific food wastes, there will be multiple valorisation possibilities and few tools exist that allow food and drink manufacturers to identify which is most profitable and sustainable for them. Such a decision would need to not only consider environmental, social and economic performance, but also how ready the technology is and how well it aligns with that company's strategy. In response, this paper develops and presents a hybrid framework that guides a company in modelling the volumes/seasonality of its wastes, identifying potential valorisation options and selecting appropriate indicators for environmental, social and economic performance as well as technological maturity and alignment with company goals. The framework guides users in analyzing economic and environmental performance using Cost-Benefit Analysis and Life Cycle Assessment respectively. The results can then be ranked alongside those for social performance, technological maturity and alignment with company goals using a weighted sum model variant of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis to facilitate easy visual comparison. This framework is demonstrated in the form of a case study with a major UK fruit consolidator to identify the optimal strategy for managing their citrus waste. Possibilities identified included sale of imperfect but still edible waste via wholesale at a significantly reduced profit and the investment in facilities to extract higher value pectin from the same waste stream using a microwave assisted pectin extraction process. Results suggest that continued sale of waste to wholesale markets is currently the most beneficial in terms of economic viability and environmental performance, but that in the medium to long term, the projected growth in the market for pectin suggests this could become the most viable strategy.
Highlights
In 2015, UK Food and Drink Manufacturing (FDM) accounted for 2.4 million tons (Mt) of food waste and surplus
The field of food waste valorisation has grown rapidly over recent decades with many publications concerning experimental research into the recovery of energy, nutrients and other high value compounds from food waste. Whilst such technical works are a valuable contribution, for many food and drink manufacturers, small to medium enterprises (SMEs) who make up the majority of the UK FDM sector, there may be challenges in aligning technical valorisation opportunities with a company's bespoke waste situation. This is because a range of factors including economic viability, environmental performance, societal impact, technological maturity and alignment with company goals determine what are likely to be a company's optimal valorisation options (Bernstad and la Cour Jansen, 2011; Iacovidou and Voulvoulis, 2018; Diaz-Balteiro et al, 2017; Cristóbal et al, 2018)
Whilst traditional pectin extraction methods are typically large scale and can be environmentally harmful, a number of recent developments using Microwave Assisted Pectin Extraction (MAPE) mean that set up costs are more viable for smaller companies and sustainability overall, is much higher (Maran et al, 2014; Eskilsson and Björklund, 2000)
Summary
In 2015, UK Food and Drink Manufacturing (FDM) accounted for 2.4 million tons (Mt) of food waste and surplus (including both unavoidable and avoidable waste/surplus). The field of food waste valorisation has grown rapidly over recent decades with many publications concerning experimental research into the recovery of energy, nutrients and other high value compounds from food waste (for example, Mirabella et al, 2014 and Kwan et al, 2015) Whilst such technical works are a valuable contribution, for many food and drink manufacturers, small to medium enterprises (SMEs) who make up the majority of the UK FDM sector, there may be challenges in aligning technical valorisation opportunities with a company's bespoke waste situation. This is because a range of factors including economic viability (i.e. costs vs benefits), environmental performance (e.g. emissions, effects on human health), societal impact (e.g. job creation, noise generation), technological maturity (e.g. readiness of technology for valorisation at a lab scale, market readiness for the product and potential of the required technology to integrate with existing company processes) and alignment with company goals (strategic alignment, brand image and fit with existing expertise) determine what are likely to be a company's optimal valorisation options (Bernstad and la Cour Jansen, 2011; Iacovidou and Voulvoulis, 2018; Diaz-Balteiro et al, 2017; Cristóbal et al, 2018)
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