PACKAGING
Effects of Restrictive Regulations
Some food losses result from food
regulations that are based on food attributes unrelated to food
safety. Regulations
based on color, shape
and size, for example,
result in the destruction of tons of food.
Other regulations may
be based on perceived
food hazards that are
not scientifically established. The use of Alar
that decimated the
apple industry in the
U.S. Northwest and
the destruction of
food that might contain parts-per-trillion
levels of Sudan Red in
the UK, for example,
were perceived threats that seriously impacted segments of the food industry,
but the regulatory reactions could not be
justified by a scientific risk/benefit analysis. Food safety is not served by such regulations (or public reactions based on
fear), and significant food losses can
result.
The Global Harmonization Initiative
(GHI; www.globalharmonization.net)
was formed through a network of scien-
tific organizations to facilitate the har-
monization of food safety regulations
and legislation. The objective empha-
sizes that food regulations should be
based on a scientific evaluation of risk
and strives to harmonize rules made by
individual governments and interna-
tional regulatory bodies. GHI “antici-
pates that elimination of the regulatory
differences will make it more attractive
for the private sector to invest in food
safety R&D, consequently strengthening
the competitiveness of each nation’s
food industry and of the industries sup-
plying the food sector. Harmonizing
global regulations will facilitate the appli-
cation of new technologies, encouraging
the food industry to invest in such tech-
nologies to ensure better safety and qual-
ity for consumers!” The result will be
more abundance of safe food.
The FAO report on food losses pre-
sented differences between food losses in
the developed and de-
veloping world. Food
losses in the developing
world tend to be re-
lated to financial, man-
agerial and technical
limitations of food dis-
tribution between the
farmer and the con-
sumer. Food losses and
waste in the developed
world mainly relate to
consumer behavior and
“lack of coordination
between different actors
in the supply chain.” A
possibly surprising find-
ing presented in the
FAO study was that
“on a per capita basis, much more food
is wasted in the industrialized world than
in developing countries. We estimate
that the per capita food waste by con-
sumers in Europe and North America is
95–115 kg/year, while this figure in Sub-
Saharan Africa and South/Southeast
Asia is only 6–11 kg/year.”
Some of the food losses in the devel-
oped world are based on regulations that
are not safety-based, as mentioned
above; some result from marketing prac-
tices such as refusing produce that is a
less desirable size, shape or color or has a
slight blemish and some are wasteful
practices. An example offered in the
Save Food Congress was an EU regula-
tion that banned curved cucumbers.
Farmers therefore could not sell curved
cucumbers, and they were not harvested.
The EU later removed that regulation,
but supermarkets still refuse to buy
curved cucumbers, so they are still rolled
into the soil.
“
”
“Food safety can
be achieved by
altering the
product from an
unacceptable (but
healthy) state into
another form.”
for sale, and income to build small business. This process both recovers food
normally lost and promotes economic
development in these remote regions.
The key is shelf life extension and safe
food products.
Much waste is generated through a
variety of practices at retail, restaurants
and hospitality entities and by consumers. Supermarkets, for example, stock
shelves with every variety of baked products such that customers shopping near
closing times have a full choice. Items
not sold become wasted. Restaurants,
banquets and hospitality often serve
considerably more food than required.
Consumers often discard food products
that reach their “best by” date, even
though those products are perfectly safe.
The approach to reducing these losses is
primarily education and a realization of
their magnitude. I have offered ideas to
effect this through www.ift.org/
food-technology/past-issues/2011/july/
features/addressing-global-food-waste.
aspx.
Conclusions
Promoting food safety and security
on a global basis matters greatly to suppliers of processing and packaging materials and machinery, as well as to the
populations their products serve. The
U.S. population is about 310 million and
that of the EU around 500 million. Our
combined total of 810 million, compared with the world population of 7 billion, means we constitute less than 12
percent of the potential market for “
appropriate” technologies. The remaining
88 percent of the world’s population will
require packaging materials and processing and packaging equipment to extend
their food supplies. Development of
small-to-medium food enterprises will
begin a cycle of economic development
that builds resources to justify further development. The bottom line is that we
can extend safe and adequate food for
humanitarian and commercial impacts.n
Kenneth S. Marsh, Ph.D., CPP, is a consultant on
food, packaging and international trade through
Kenneth S. Marsh & Associates Ltd.
For more information on food packaging,
please visit
www.foodsafetymagazine.com/
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