Reducing Food Waste Through Improved Cold Chain Management

Careful management and improved logistics across the cold chain could save billions of dollars in wasted food.

It's a staggering statistic, and one you've likely heard some variation of—one-third of the world’s food produced for human consumption goes to waste. Estimates put annual food wastage at 1.3 billion tons, an amount worth billions of dollars.

What's more, it's worth billions of lives. 

Considering that over 2 billion people are affected by food insecurity, and waste numbers are rising, a lot needs to be done to alleviate hunger while minimizing food wastage.

Emerging technologies such as temperature monitoring can significantly mitigate food waste while improving the profitability of food distributors and retailers.

Tracing the Food Wastage: From Farm to Fork

Food wastage occurs throughout the supply chain (processing, distribution, consumption), but it begins in production.

If farmers don’t have access to market data and communication links with other farmers or buyers, much of what they produce doesn’t reach people’s plates due to oversupply.

Typically, food supply chains are complex. Researchers estimate that 14 percent of food waste occurs between when the food is produced and when it is distributed.

As a consequence, fresh food in up to 70 percent of global supply chains goes bad due to inadequate or improper storage.

Over time, however, continued innovation, including technologies like coldvision.ai temperature monitoring, could minimize these losses to a great extent.

Take cold chains, for instance. A variation on conventional supply chains, they entail the movement of perishable goods under refrigeration at each stage.

The challenge arises from the complexity of handling different types of foods, which require varying temperature conditions to be distributed across different areas. Despite this challenge, simple cold chains have the potential to cut food waste by nearly half a billion tons each year.

This represents a significant improvement in our ability to feed more people at a lower cost while driving greater profitability into the food service company’s bottom line.

And yet this isn’t enough.

More can be done to preserve food products in ways that keep their quality and nutritional value intact from farm to fork, increasing access to healthy food for all.

For starters, here’s how improved cold chain management can cut food wastage and enhance food security.

Refining Distribution: Micro Fulfillment Closer to Consumers 

Typically, food distribution depends heavily on a network of distribution centers, docks, and trucks to transport food items from place to place until they reach grocery outlets or are delivered to consumers.

Several challenges arise with this method. 

Different foods require varying ideal conditions. With large-scale refrigeration centers being used, it's inevitable that some food goes bad in transit. 

Further complicating the issue is the distance between these centers and the final destination. 

Food retailers in one part of the country may depend on supply from such centers in other states, for instance. As such, both time and distance affect the delivery of entirely unspoiled food from reaching consumers.

Rethinking distribution calls for a shift from centralized food distribution. There is a need to shorten the chain and, in doing so, bring food much closer to market. 

Micro fulfillment centers could be a viable alternative. These are less expensive cold storage facilities that can be located much closer to retail points. 

Taking up 10,000 square feet or less, micro fulfillment centers not only reduce the miles food travels in transit but could also prove less expensive to establish and maintain, while reducing the costs associated with making food accessible.

Retailers can manage their food inventory more efficiently when they don’t have to source large quantities only for the actual supply to fall below expectations. 

Regional micro fulfillment centers are better placed to meet shifting demand as they hold smaller quantities and are much closer to points of sale and consumption.

This makes it easier for retailers to order food items based on demand projections and is especially useful when there’s a need for additional food supply on short notice.

Dedicated Transportation: Another layer of protection 

To address the issue of food spoilage in transit, we should rethink how it reaches the consumer.

While traditional transport methods may have cooling mechanisms in place, innovations such as transportation equipped with monitoring systems can go a long way in keeping food fresh for longer and reducing wastage to a minimum.

Sonicu’s temperature monitoring solution provides continuous, consistent temperature monitoring for distribution centers. 

When coupled with temperature monitoring included in transportation systems, cold chain leaders can protect their products with a round-the-clock assessment of conditions while goods are in transit and in storage, assuring food retailers that food items will be delivered in good condition.

Harnessing the Internet of Things

In addition to leveraging improved distribution and climate-monitoring technology, there’s room to harness the potential of advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the delivery of fresh food to consumers.

Increasingly sophisticated tools can process large volumes of data more quickly and generate insights that help improve every stage of the food distribution process. 

Using data analysis, data points can be mapped and inferences drawn to predict consumer demand more accurately, project production shortfalls due to weather patterns, estimate optimal transport routes/timelines, and gauge the likelihood of food spoilage based on a set of customizable criteria.

Sonicu’s wireless remote monitoring systems leverage the Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud-based technology to provide reliable data on product safety 24/7. Products can be monitored remotely, and alerts are triggered automatically if a temperature excursion occurs. 

Depending on the product, it’s possible to monitor not only temperature but also humidity, pressure, and even Ultra Low Temperature (ULT) conditions, which were critical during the distribution of COVID-19. 

As a result, it’s now possible to monitor trailers throughout the transport process from distribution centers to other points along the supply chain. 

Food items not only ship in ideal conditions, but real-time data on their condition is also available. 

The best part is that the Sonicu monitoring process is entirely automated.

Additionally, Sonicu offers advanced cold storage solutions suitable for virtually any temperature-sensitive environment. 

For those operating cold storage facilities, such as large-scale warehouses or micro-fulfillment distribution centers for food, critical variables can be easily monitored from anywhere through the web-based dashboard, which is accessible on mobile devices, tablets, and desktops.

These real-time, continuous monitoring solutions enable faster response times to address potential issues in storing or delivering food to the point of sale while improving efficiency and reducing workload from manual processes.

As with any system relying heavily on the internet to remain operational, security is of great concern. 

All Sonicu monitoring solutions use the SoniCloud Monitoring system, which has key security features in place, including:

• Best-in-class cloud hosting with guaranteed uptime and top-notch security
• Data syncing feature to maintain 100 percent  data integrity
• Virtual private network (VPN) connectivity to safeguard the system from security breaches

Once goods arrive at retail points, Sonicu offers the same monitoring solutions for retail centers to minimize spoilage by maintaining ideal conditions.

As automation becomes the norm and technology continues to improve, adopting innovative processes and tools is one way of reducing food waste and associated financial losses while contributing to better nutrition outcomes for all.

To learn more about how Sonicu can help with your monitoring needs in the Food Safety, Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals, Life Sciences, and Animal Health industries, get in touch.