Japan passed a new law aimed at halving the cost of food waste by 2030, compared with 2000. The country spends an estimated USD 19 million every year disposing of food waste, the third-highest per capita cost in Asia. Supermarkets are deploying robots and artificial intelligence to scan products on arrival and in-store to help them spot anything that has been damaged or that is going bad. The supermarket chain Lawson said that disposing of food waste was the group’s biggest cost after labour and that it would reduce stocks by a third to meet the targets.
Japanese consumers are known to be demanding, and many food manufacturers in the country discard products that are just one third through to the expiry period. The e-commerce company Kuradashi said, however, that things were changing with the pandemic; consumers are becoming more price-sensitive. Membership to its discounted unsold foods platform more than doubled since 2019 while sales were up 2.5 times. Kuradashi is also leveraging its platform for food banks and helps reduce the amount of food waste that needs to be incinerated, lowering CO2 emissions in the process.
The explosion in online grocery shopping in China is pushing e-commerce companies like Alibaba to get actively involved in agriculture. Over USD 150 billion worth of agricultural products were sold on Alibaba platforms in the last eight years but an analysis by Bloomberg explains the government has been cracking down on monopolies in e-commerce platforms. Instead, it is calling on tech giants to invest in smart agriculture for which they can avail large government subsidies. Investments so far include smart poultry bracelets, irrigation sensors and artificial intelligence to help with planting. Thus, instead of being under the government’s radar, Alibaba received praise for contributing to reducing rural poverty.
Greenpeace released its latest grocery chains’ plastic use ranking but complained that most groups did not disclose any information on their plastic usage. Greenpeace did commend Costco for making some improvements, including its target of reducing Styrofoam use.
Coca-Cola, which often features at the top of worst plastic polluters’ lists, announced it would launch its first paper bottle on a trial basis in Hungary. The bottle, developed with Paboco, still has some recyclable plastic but the aim is to eventually be completely plastic-free. The trick, one of the company officials said, is to mould the bottle in a single piece and avoid joints. Otherwise, it breaks under pressure, especially with fizzy drinks. It took Paboco seven years to develop this bottle.
In the US, Coca-Cola will be launching bottles entirely made from recycled PET (rPET), except for the label and cap. This should help the group reduce its consumption of new plastic by 20% in North America compared to 2018. In order to ensure a sufficient supply of rPET, Coke is adding messaging on bottles to encourage consumers to recycle the bottle. It is also switching the colouring of some bottles, such as Sprite, to transparent bottles as most coloured PET can’t be recycled. Bioplastics News argued that it didn’t make sense to try and develop a paper bottle when PET bottled can be completely recycled. This is especially so if the paper bottles require to cut down more trees, it added.
Still in the US, the consumer group Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has asked the Federal Trade Commission to look into the so-called “trade promotions” system in supermarkets. CSPI said that food giants like Coca-Cola and Mars spend USD 50 billion annually to secure prime spots in aisles, a practice which, it argues, is anti-competitive and encourages the consumption of unhealthy foods.
Third-party delivery service DoorDash, which went public last December, reported a 225% increase in Q4 2020 sales to USD 970 million. However, the group’s net loss is widening, at USD 312 million, from USD 134 million a year prior. The situation is expected to get worse with lockdown measures easing. It hopes to get around this with an expansion in grocery deliveries. Domino’s, which reported an 11% growth in sales in Q4, said it had never made money from delivering pizza – only on the pizza itself. As such, the CEO doubts the business soundness of third-party delivery apps. Instead, Domino’s is going in the other direction by reducing its delivery area and increasing the number of stores.
According to a report by the LA Times, there has been a surge in scams involving third party delivery apps and restaurants. The scams include fraudulent credit cards as well as refund requests on the basis that the food was never delivered. One restaurateur said a customer bought USD 730 worth of food in one go via a third-party app. The customer picked up the food and then disputed the charges. Delivery services mostly take the side of customers, leaving the restaurants to foot the bill, the report said. And if that wasn’t bad enough for restaurants that have been reeling under the pandemic, there has also been a surge in the theft of outdoor heating lamps. With more restaurants forced to offer outdoor seating areas, heating lamps are worth a lot on the secondary market.
This summary was produced by ECRUU
