Dr. Ron Porat

Dept. of Postharvest Science

ARO, the Volcani Center, Israel

Food loss and waste

Food security

relates to food supply/access/availability

Definition according to the 1996 World Food Summit

report: “insure that all people at all times have

physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and

nutritious food”

The amount of “available” food depends on

production levels on one hand and loss rates on the

other hand!

Thus, to increase food security (food availability) we

need to increase production and reduce losses!

Global food losses & waste

Recent studies by various international

organizations led by the FAO demonstrated that

between third to half (1.3-2 billion tons) of all

produced food gets lost along the supply chain.

Global losses of fruit & vegetable are 45-55%!

Global losses of grains are 20-35%!

FAO, 2011

Further reports demonstrated that food losses

may even reach up to 50%!!!

“Getting food from the farm to our fork eats up 10 percent of the total U.S. energy budget, uses 50 percent of U.S.land, and swallows 80 percent of all freshwater consumed in the United States. Yet, 40 percent of food in theUnited States today goes uneaten.”

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), USA, 2012

NRDC, 2012

Institute of Mechanical Engineers, 2013

Institute of Mechanical Engineers, 2013

IN SOUTH EAST ASIAN COUNTRIES, LOSSES OF RICE CAN RANGE FROM 37–80% OF THE ENTIRE PRODUCTION.

Institute of Mechanical Engineers, 2013

IN INDIA, 21 MILLION TONNES OF WHEAT IS WASTED EACH YEAR DUE TO INADEQUATE STORAGE AND DISTRIBUTION SYSTEMS.

WRAP

UNEP, 2013

Food losses by weight:

Fresh fruit & vegetables provide ~70% of all

food losses!

F&V

Roots and tubers

Cereals

Food losses occur at the following stages of the food

supply chain:

● Production

● Storage

● Processing and packing

● Marketing

● Consumption

Farm Fork

FAO, 2011Food losses of F&V

UNEP, 2013

45%

54%

Recent studies show that 30-50% of total food losses

in developed countries occur at households!

In England, out of 41 million tons of sold food at 2014,

about 15 million tons (36%) were lost at households,

restaurants and catering!

WRAP, 2015

Food waste at consumers homes

Institute of Mechanical Engineers, 2013

In the UK, 7 million tones of food valued at about 10 billion pounds is thrown away from homes every year.

Examples of food losses along the supply chain

Production Storage Packing and

sortingMarketing Consumption

Rejected bananas, Costa Rika

Food losses - Production

Food losses - Storage

20% of carrots in UK are not marketable because

of shape.

Food losses – Sorting/processing

Food losses - Marketing

Expiration datesDecay

Food losses - Consumption

Why is food loss a global problem?

Environmental reason

● Waste of natural resources (water, land, energy,

fertilizers, etc.)

● Dumping food waste to landfill emits methane that

contributes to global warming.

Economic reason

● Waste of money

● Contributes to rising food prices

Social reason

● Food rescue can solve hunger and food insecurity

of poor populations

Moral/Ethical/Religious reason

● We need food for our living and thus must learn to

respect our food, especially when millions of people

suffer from hunger.

“OVER 2.5 TRILLION M3

OF WATER IS CONSUMED BY THE GLOBAL AGRICULTURAL SECTOR EACH YEAR”

Institute of Mechanical Engineers, 2013

Water footprint

UNEP, 2013

What can we do to reduce food losses?

First thing in order to fight food loss

is declaration of policy

In Sept. 2015 the UN declared its 17 Sustainable

Development Goals (SDG’s) including reduction of

food loss (SDG12.3)

Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production

Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production

TARGETS

12.3 By 2030, halve per capita global food waste at the

retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses

along production and supply chains, including post-

harvest losses

Halve food losses by 2030!!!

The SDG12.3 goal was further approved by the EU parliament, US government, and at the G20 Agricultural Ministries meeting in Beijing, 2016.

US EPA food recovery hierarchy

Reduction of food loss after harvest

● Use good varieties with prolonged storage life

● Use good postharvest practices (cooling, sanitation)

● Maintain the cold chain

Kader, 2000

The most important

factor to reduce

postharvest food

losses is proper

maintenance of the

cold chain!!!

Reduction of food loss during

processing and packaging

● Lower external quality standards

● Marketing imperfect fruit & vegetables

Waitrose supermarket adopted lower

external quality standards

Reduction of food loss during

marketing

● Measure and record food losses

● Efficient stock ordering based on demand

● Maintain the cold chain

● Sell products in different sizes

● Sell products in discount before “Sell by” date

● Sell perishable products in discount at the end of day

● Donate extra food to charities

● Stop 1 + 1 sales of perishable produce

Proper cooling

Various produce sizes

Packaging materials

Reduction of food loss at households

● Do not buy too much (more than you need)

● Do not cook too much (more than you can eat)

● Serve proper sizes

● Arrangement of the refrigerator

● Prepare meals from leftovers

● Give leftovers to friends and neighbors

● Freeze leftovers

● etc.

Arrangement of the refrigerator

Other ways to reduce food

losses

Promote food rescue (food recovery)

Food bank“A food bank or foodbank is a non-profit,

charitable organization that distributes food to

those who have difficulty purchasing enough food to avoid hunger.”

FareShare

Awareness campaigns

Advertising storage instructions

Education at schools

Recycling organic waste

New laws to prevent food loss

Feb. 2016

Reduction of food losses by postharvest operations

Implementation of proper postharvest operations

can reduce losses along the supply chain

including storage, marketing and consumption!

Institute of Postharvest and Food SciencesARO, The Volcani Center

Postharvest innovations in Israel

- Breeding for better postharvest quality

- Environmentally safe sanitation treatments

- Modified atmosphere packaging

- Chilling tolerance and quarantine treatments

- Fresh cut and edible coatings

- Advances in grain storage

Breeding for better

postharvest quality

Selecting varieties with good postharvest

storage performance is a key factor for reducing

losses!

Melon varieties

Sensitivity of different ‘Charentais’

varieties to decay

Current melon breeding project

Climacteric type varieties – very sweet and flavorful

but have a short shelf-life

Non-climacteric type varieties – are less sweet and

flavorful but have a long shelf-life

Our breeding goal is to introduce preferred fruit

quality traits into non-climacteric type melon

varieties!

Mutant line Commercial cultivar

Breeding by mutagenesis for better postharvest traits

4th harvest Planting

Storage of rocula leaves for seven days in MAP at 17°C

WT Mutant

Prolonging banana shelf-life by reducing levels of

developmental ripening-control genes

Tomer Elitzur, Jim Giovannoni, Julia Vrebalov, Haya Friedman

Ripening is a genetically-controlled process

Adams-Phillips et al. Tren Plant Sci (2004) 9: 331-338

TAGL1

ripening inhibitor (rin) mutation and TAGL1 inhibition in tomato fruit

Transformants (RIN/RIN) with the

LeMADS-RIN antisense cDNA

Vrebalov et al. (2002) Science 296: 343-346

Kitagawa (2005) Physiol Plant 123: 331-338

LeRIN

MaMADS1

MaMADS2

MaMADS3

MaMADS4

MaMADS5

MaMADS6

0 240aa40 80 120 160 200

MADS box K CI

Isolation of MaMADSgenes from the cultivar Grand Nain

778bp

350bp

346bp

5’UTR

Selective germination Rooting

Banana transformation

20

40

60

80

100

120

AS 36

AS 37

Con 1

AS40

AS 45

Re

lati

ve

qu

an

tita

tio

n

GENE1 Antisense

Con 2

Con 3

20

40

60

80

100

120

RNAi 21

RNAi

23

RNAi

24

GENE1 RNAi

Con 1

Con 2

Con 3

20

40

60

RNAi

19

RNAi 20

Con 2

Con

1

Peel

Pulp

GENE2 RNAi

Verification of reduced levels of transcripts in

transgenic plants

Control

Gene 1 fruits ripeningRNAiAntisense

RNAiAntisenseControl

AntisenseControl RNAi

35DAH

26DAH

19DAH

21 23 24

21 23 24

21 23 24

36 37 40 45

36 37 40 45

36 37 40 45

1 2 3

1 2 3

1 2 3

RNAiControl

RNAiControl

GENE 2 fruits ripening

26DAH

19DAH

19 20

19 20

These transgenic fruit provide several commercial advantages:

• Might be transported at higher temperature

• Have longer shelf-life

2 weeks after harvest 3 weeks after harvest

Control Mutant Mutant

Environmentally safe

sanitation treatments

One of the most important goals in postharvest management is decay control. However, due to new regulatory restrictions many fungicides are not allowed to be used anymore and the allowed MRL’s of others continuously decrease, and thus it is necessary to develop alternative environmentally friendly measures for decay control.

Hot water rinsing and brushing machine

A new machine combining a short hot water rinsing and

brushing treatment (~55ºC for 20 sec) was developed to

clean and disinfect agricultural products.

Hot Water Rinsing and Brushing(HWRB)

HW TW

HW TW

BeforeAfter

HWRB- 55°C for 15-20 s

Prof. Elli Fallik

Ripe-on-vine tomato tap water washer

‘Star Ruby’ grapefruit before and after hot water brushing

Sterilization of the fruit surface following HWB

at increasing temperatures

Steam heat

A new sanitation treatment based on a short exposure

(2-3 sec) to steam heat.

A steam-disinfection technology

PBT (2011) 59: 265-271

Biological control

Biological control comprises using natural occurring

microorganisms to compete with the pathogens.

Modes of action of biocontrol antagonists

1. Competition on space and nutrients.

2. Production of antibiotics

3. Direct parasitism

4. Induction of host pathogen resistance

Naturally suppressive microorganisms on plant

surface can suppress disease development.

Biological control technologies for the control of postharvest diseases

Prof. Samir Droby

Modes of action of biocontrol antagonists

Colonization in wound sites

(competition on space)

Attachment to fungal cell walls

(direct parasitism)

Apple

Tomato

Grape

Antagonistic Yeast Citrus

Development of biocontrol agents against postharvest

pathogens

Dissection the molecular mechanism of fruit resistance in response to fungal pH secreted effectors modulating post harvest disease interaction

Reduction of postharvest decay by treatments leading to modulation of pH

Prof. Dov Prusky

MegaAir

New sterilization

technology for

disinfection of cold

rooms by chlorine

dioxide.

Co

ntro

lEF

Air-phase control of decay during storage

Modified atmosphere

packaging (MAP)

Modified humidity and modified atmospheretechnologies are important for maintaining produce quality after harvest.

The Volcani center in collaboration with Stepack Ltd. developed a unique micro-perforated polyamide bag (Xtend®) with modified humidity preventing water condensation.

Our research first focused on fresh herbs, and later on other produce.

Modified atmosphere packaging of

fresh herbs

Sophisticated PE bags for fresh herbs (Colored strips)

Xtend® modified humidity bags

Modified atmosphere packaging – MAP

Sophisticated plastic bags

PE Perforated Xtend

PE Perforated Xtend

Development of bulk modified

atmosphere packaging for pomegranate

First commercial trail using Xtend® bags

Harvesting into bulk 75 kg bags in divided harvest bins

Commercial harvesting into bulk MA bags in bins

An Israeli patent for grain storage in developing countries

(sealed tents under vacuum)

Chilling tolerance became very important for

international trading, since many importing

countries require application of extreme cold

quarantine treatments for insect irradiation.

Chilling tolerance and

quarantine treatments

24 days at -0.55 °C

ControlCold acclimation(7 days at 16°C)

Oroblanco (‘Sweetie’) fruit after 26 days at -0.5°C

There is increasing demand for fresh cut ready

to eat produce. However, fresh cut produce have

short shelf-lives and require implementation of

advanced sterilization and postharvest storage

technologies.

Fresh cut produce

New sanitation technologies

UV Hot water

MAP technologies

New method

Old method

After 2 weeks at 8 °C

Prevention of browning

Edible coatings can/will replace current

commercial waxes, and are beneficial for fresh-

cut produce and for fruit and vegetables that are

eaten with their peel.

Edible coatings

Effects of the Composite Chitosan-Gelatin Edible Coatings on

Postharvest Quality and Storability of Red Bell Peppers

Yana Zaitsev, Hadar Arnon, Rina Granit, Sharon Alkalai-Tuvia, Yaacov Perzelan, Tamar

Weinbreg, Elazar Fallik, Elena Poverenov*

* significantly enhanced fruit firmness

* significant decrease in microbial decay

* prolonged storage from 14 to 21 days

* normal respiration and nutritional content

Chitosan-gelatin is a good combination for peppers fruit

Gelatin 1%Control Chitosan 2% Chitosan+ gelatin

3 weeks at 20°C + 4 days at 20°C

Active edible coatings based on natural polymers

Polysaccharides - natural polymers, biodegradable, non-expensive and safe

In the past, sprouting was prevented by

commercial application of chlorpropham (CIPC).

This research provided alternative

environmentally friendly and safe measures for

prevention of sprouting by mint essential oil

fogging.

Prevention of potato

sprouting

Essential oil to prevent sprouting during 6-9 months storage

Effects of mint oil thermal fogging on sprouting of various potato varieties after 6 months storage

Experimental system for fumigation experiments

Advances in grain

storage

Integrated Pest Management

Inspection: traps

Prevention: mating disruption using

pheromones

Treatment: fumigation

Thank you for your attention!