Food Protection Trends - July/August 2019 - 352

Figure 7. Meeting speakers included (front row, left to right) Susan Backus, eva Almenar,
elisabetta Lambertini, Caitilyn Allen, Katya Hantel (back row, left to right) Scott Burnett, David
Mcinnes, Kevin Smith, David Meeker, Cole Doolittle, Herman Carni, rohit Kapoor, and David Fikes.

Kapoor (National Dairy Council) explained that until relatively
recently, whey represented a significant environmental burden.
Many of the nutrients in milk (20% of milk protein and 95% of
milk carbohydrates) are found in whey and thus are potentially
lost when cheese is made. Today, however, whey is a "core
product" of the dairy industry, which generates great value as
a key ingredient in many food and beverage products such as
sports and infant nutrition products.
Moving beyond protein, the dairy industry is now utilizing
other components of whey. When protein is removed from
whey, the remaining products include whey protein phospholipid
concentrate, lactose, and delactosed permeate. Whey permeates
are being developed for their ability to enhance the perception
of salt in reduced sodium products, while whey protein-lipid
concentrates are used in infant formula because of their potential
ability to enhance cognitive development and immune defense.
At the very top of the food recovery hierarchy, Herman
Carni discussed how a large food bank can operate to distribute
food that might otherwise be wasted to people in need. The
Greater Chicago Food Depository is one of the top 6 food banks
in the U.S., distributing more than 70 million pounds of food
each year. Most of the food comes from retail food stores. The
organization has a strong focus on nutrition: A large proportion
(37%) of the food distributed is produce, while cakes, cookies,
desserts are not accepted as donations.
What is still needed?
While many success stories of how food companies were
able to reduce food, water, and energy waste exist, several
speakers mentioned specific issues that still require attention.
Sustainability is a trendy corporate buzzword, but as
Cole Doolittle asked, how can it be measured? Similarly,
David McInnes emphasized a growing need for transparency
so that food company sustainability claims can be validated
and traceable. Supply chain metrics related to sustainability
need to be comparable between companies in order to make
"transparency transparent."
Consumers still generate a large proportion of food waste,
but food at the consumer level is hard to rescue. As Herman
Carni described, prepared foods that are not packaged and
labeled cannot be distributed through food banks because of food
safety reasons (for example, potential food allergen content).

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Food Protection Trends July/August

Caitilyn Allen questioned whether reducing the currently
enormous portion sizes found in U.S. restaurants could be
addressed as a way to reduce food waste. Kevin Smith pointed out
that menu labeling requirements that include calorie information
may help with this. Rescuing wasted food from buffets and
school lunch programs still needs a solution.
Gene-editing shows tremendous promise to easily and
rapidly develop new plants and animals with traits that could
significantly improve the sustainability of food products. While
the U.S. regulatory approach for products developed from such
technologies is streamlined compared to that for traditionally
GMOs, some regions such as the E.U. are regulating products
developed from gene editing similarly to those developed from
traditional genetic modification. As Allen pointed out, this will
undoubtedly cause problems since crops or animals created
with gene editing are not distinguishable from products of
conventional breeding. Besides regulatory hurdles, the court of
consumer opinion still needs to be won over. Allen believes the
first crop generated from CRISPR gene-edited plants is likely to
be cacao, as 20-30% of cacao pods are lost due to disease, and
climate change also threatens to reduce cacao yields. But will
consumers accept this chocolate?
Lastly, as pointed out by David McInnes, even though
the world's food supply is safer and more abundant than ever,
"consumers don't pay for the real price of food." The full price of
food includes diet-related chronic disease, resource depletion,
and food waste factors that are not always considered by
consumers. The price charged for foods may be insufficient to
cover such social and environmental impacts.
Looking forward
Food companies and consumers may be slow to embrace
sustainability; it is one thing to give it lip service, but are they
ready and willing to really invest in it?
Panelist Katya Hantel is optimistic. Consumers are now
holding food companies responsible "farm to fork", even for
practices that occur upstream or downstream from in the food
chain and are not directly under their control. Consumers are
also examining their own food consumption habits and making
changes to reduce food waste and improve sustainability. Food
products such as meal kits which have the perceived side benefit
of generating less food waste are particularly popular among
younger consumers.

Food Protection Trends - July/August 2019

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