One of New Zealand's largest bakery producers has joined a voluntary agreement to reduce food waste.
George Weston Foods New Zealand (GWF), which makes baked goods sold under the Tip Top Bakery, Bürgen, Ploughman's Bakery, Big Ben, Golden and Dad's Pies brands, has joined Kai Commitment, an initiative helping leading food sector businesses to reduce food waste and associated greenhouse gas emissions.
It comes at a time when global leaders are meeting at COP28 to advance urgent talks on how the world can better collaborate to reduce emissions and slow the planet's warming.
GWF joins some of New Zealand's largest food businesses already signed up to the programme, including Fonterra, Foodstuffs, Countdown, Silver Fern Farms, Nestle and fellow bread producer Goodman Fielder.
Mark Bosomworth, GM of GWF, said the programme aligns with the company's commitment to feeding the community sustainability and responsibly and inspiring and educating consumers on reducing food waste.
"Kai Commitment is an opportunity for us to draw on international best practices, as well as collaborate with other leading food producers in New Zealand to work on shared solutions to reducing food waste across the value chain," said Bosomworth.
Bosomworth noted that a particular focus of GWF's work with Kai Commitment was looking at strategies to optimise supply.
"With bread being a short shelf-life product, there is a fine line to producing enough each day so that consumers can always get a loaf, but not producing so much that it doesn't get eaten and goes to animal feed."
Bosomworth continued that getting this balance right means that there is not only less waste but also that resources used to create products are conserved, including raw ingredients and things like power, packaging, and water.
Recent research revealed that, on average, each Kiwi household wastes more than $1500 worth of food annually, for $3.2 billion per year. Bread is the top item wasted, with more than 20 million loaves per year going to waste.
Kaitlin Dawson, Executive Director of the New Zealand Food Waste Champions Charitable Trust, who runs Kai Commitment, welcomed GWF joining the programme and said tackling food waste makes economic, environmental and social sense.
"We know that globally, 30 to 40 percent of the food that is produced is wasted at the cost of trillions of dollars, and food waste contributes approximately four percent of New Zealand's total greenhouse gas emissions, and 10 percent globally," said Dawson.
"We also know that up to 20 percent of children households experience moderate to severe food insecurity, so tackling food waste has got to be a continued priority in New Zealand."
Dawson said that having another one of Australasia's largest food producers join Kai Commitment demonstrates this programme's value and the sector's willingness to work collaboratively to shift the dial on causes and solutions to food waste.
