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UNECE’s Smart Solution to Food Loss

UNECE has designed a smart impactful food loss management system to help trace and quantify the food lost and to distribute the currently “invisible” and unavailable food in alternative food chains. In this context, “invisible food” is food removed from the supply chain for various reasons at different stages. Our innovative approach pioneered by UNECE and embraced by other UN agencies is an online blockchain-supported marketplace for the food supplies that currently go to waste and are removed from the human food production and consumption chain. The primary objective is the inclusion of the “invisible” food in the food system. This will result in generating income and employment (particularly for women and youth), and through its tracing function produce data currently unavailable to governments for planning policies and interventions at hotspots. These new supply chains will create direct and new links and help find alternative uses for food otherwise lost.
The online marketplace can perform the following functions:
  • Buy and sell agricultural produce that would otherwise be lost or wasted.
  • Quantify, monitor and report the food waste impact every year at all levels and all groups (including small-scale farmers)
  • Account for, makes available and repurposes to alternative buyers, currently “invisible” produce.