{"id":3718,"date":"2019-01-28T16:30:34","date_gmt":"2019-01-28T22:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/questrmg.com\/2019\/03\/27\/how-the-food-supply-chain-can-reduce-waste\/"},"modified":"2020-01-31T15:08:10","modified_gmt":"2020-01-31T21:08:10","slug":"how-the-food-supply-chain-can-reduce-waste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/questrmg.com\/how-the-food-supply-chain-can-reduce-waste\/","title":{"rendered":"How The Food Industry Can Reduce Waste"},"content":{"rendered":"

The food supply chain creates a colossal amount of waste. Each year, 1.6 billion tons<\/a>\u00a0of food goes to waste. Fleets transporting food to distribution centers are running inefficiently. Recyclable packaging can be dismissed as \u201ctoo expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Refining Food Industry Processes for a Sustainability-Focused Future: An Interview with Ray Hatch from Quest Resource Management Group<\/span><\/h2>\n

Texas-based\u00a0Quest Resource Management Group<\/a>\u00a0(Nasdaq: QRHC)\u00a0is disrupting traditional waste management methods, aiming to transform some of the wasteful steps in the food supply chain. The company helps their clients develop custom sustainability solutions that streamline operations, reduce waste, and ultimately, increase profitability.
\nTo learn a little more about how the food industry can do their part to make their processes, and as a result, the food supply chain, more efficient, we spoke with Ray Hatch, Quest\u2019s CEO.<\/p>\n

What are the biggest waste management challenges you see in the food industry?<\/span><\/h2>\n

RH:<\/strong>\u00a0Food is perishable by nature, so the food industry faces unique challenges like code dates and packaging. Also, there are a lot of fleet miles incurred to get product back and forth.
\nFrom manufacturing all the way through distribution and retail, there are tremendous challenges \u2014 and opportunities \u2014 pertaining to sustainability. For instance, the industry can look for ways to make their packaging more sustainable, make their fleet drive fewer miles, or recycle motor oil.<\/p>\n

What are some areas of confusion and misconceptions about waste management and recycling?<\/span><\/h2>\n

The biggest challenge we see with food businesses is moving away from the standard mindset, which is something like, \u201cWe put everything in the compactor or the dumpster now. Why would we do anything different?\u201d
\nAnother common misconception we hear is that recycling costs a lot of money. Business owners and CEOs are typically held accountable to a board and shareholders, so anything that adds cost is challenging. At Quest, we get a chance to illustrate how, in most cases, you\u2019re not adding cost by recycling. You\u2019re actually increasing your efficiency and, ultimately, reducing your costs \u2014 all while doing the right thing with the materials.<\/p>\n

What factors are pressuring food companies to move more toward sustainability?<\/span><\/h2>\n

There are three \u201cbuckets,\u201d if you will, of things that are tailwinds to sustainability in the food space, and the B2B space in general.
\nOne is regulation. For example, in certain parts of the country, it\u2019s now illegal to put food waste in the landfill or the standard trash. So regulation is growing, and I\u2019m glad it is, because landfills are filling up. It\u2019s going to continue putting pressure on sustainability in every aspect of the food business.
\nSecond is the investment community. I think close to 70% of the S&P 500s reports on sustainability today. There\u2019s a lot of pressure on the food industry from investors and investor groups to increase and improve their sustainability, and, further, publish their progress.
\nThe third one is more basic, and, I think, more important than all the rest: consumer purchasing power.<\/p>\n

What are the benefits of optimizing waste management and giving sustainability initiatives a boost?<\/span><\/h2>\n

In the food industry, reducing shrink \u2014 meaning code-dated material that gets thrown away and goes nearly 100% into the landfill \u2014 is critical. That nirvana, that perfection you\u2019re looking for, is to have the\u00a0exact right\u00a0<\/i>amount of raw materials to produce the\u00a0exact right<\/i>\u00a0number of items that fill the truck\u00a0exactly right<\/i>. And that perfectly loaded truck goes to its final location and the items move through the rest of the logistics chain \u2014 all creating zero waste.
\nIn other words, the perception that sustainability, recycling, and all that \u201cgreen stuff\u201d has a serious cost associated with it isn\u2019t necessarily true. As a matter of fact, in most cases it\u2019s just the opposite. A big motivator is to reduce your costs, save money, and increase your earnings by being more sustainable.<\/p>\n

What advice would you give food processors and manufacturers that are just looking to start their sustainability initiative or take it to the next level?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Look at your operations with a whole new lens. Forget your paradigms. Look at everything going into your dumpster and the landfill, the traditional trash, and ask yourself whether there\u2019s a better way to do that.
\nSecond, before waste goes into the dumpster and heads to the landfill, ask yourself, \u201cIs there a way that we could avoid creating this waste?\u201d This includes fleets. Are you recycling the materials that are coming off of the trucks? Are you using the most efficient types of engines and methods that you possibly can?
\nThere are sustainability opportunities from cradle to grave. So take a hard, unbiased look at your business operation and see if there\u2019s any way you can avoid throwing more stuff away.
\nAnd seek help. There\u2019s a lot of expertise out there.
\nCompanies want to be more sustainable. They\u2019re just looking for how to do it and how to do it better.<\/p>\n

This interview originally\u00a0appeared on FoodIndustryExecutive.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The food supply chain creates a colossal amount of waste. Each year, 1.6 billion tons\u00a0of food goes to waste. Fleets transporting food to distribution centers are running inefficiently. Recyclable packaging can be dismissed as \u201ctoo expensive.\u201d Refining Food Industry Processes for a Sustainability-Focused Future: An Interview with Ray Hatch from Quest Resource Management Group Texas-based\u00a0Quest…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":3794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,75],"tags":[3235,19,33,40,3237,3238],"class_list":["post-3718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fleet-efficiency","category-manufacturing-solutions-blog","tag-food-supply-chain","tag-food-waste-management","tag-waste-reduction","tag-sustainability-practices","tag-food-industry","tag-waste-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/questrmg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/questrmg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/questrmg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/questrmg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/questrmg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/questrmg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/questrmg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/questrmg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/questrmg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/questrmg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}