Over one-third of the world’s food is lost or wasted, undermining efforts to end hunger and malnutrition while contributing 8 to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. In low- and middle-income countries, over 40 percent of food loss occurs before a crop even makes it to market, whether due to inadequate storage, pests or microbes, spoilage, spillage in transport or otherwise. Eliminating food loss and waste (FLW) would provide enough food to feed two billion people, as well as reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Addressing FLW is critical to global food security, nutrition and climate change mitigation, with digital technology and the reduction of household food waste playing an important role in these efforts.
In order to raise awareness, exchange information and share success stories, USAID’s Food Loss and Waste Community of Practice created the USAID Kitchen Sink Food Loss and Waste Podcast. Our goal is to share monthly, bite-sized episodes that highlight the approaches USAID and the U.S. government are taking to address FLW. We hope these episodes provide a valuable resource for those interested in why we should care about FLW and how we can reduce it.
Our latest episode is with Rishi Banerjee, Senior Director of SmartLabel at the Consumer Brands Association. Rishi shares the type of information that SmartLabel can provide to increase transparency and how this can benefit consumers. Together, we discuss the role SmartLabel might play in reducing FLW, including information on food safety and recycling. We conclude by considering the future opportunities for digital technologies in the FLW and food safety space.
You can subscribe to receive the latest episodes of USAID’s Kitchen Sink and listen to our episodes on the platform of your choice: Apple, Spotify, and more! Video recordings of the episodes are available on YouTube. Check in every month for new episodes as global experts discuss a range of issues about FLW and methane emissions - from the critical role of youth to the staggering economic costs - and learn about specific ways that USAID is tackling FLW around the world.
If you have an idea for an episode topic you’d like to see featured or if you would like to participate in an episode of USAID’s Kitchen Sink, please reach out to Nika Larian (nlarian@usaid.gov).
There’s no time to waste!
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(Speaker 1:
Nika Larian) Welcome to USAID's Kitchen Sink a food loss and waste podcast. I'm your producer, Nika Larian. 30 to 40% of the food that is produced is either lost or wasted, contributing to a global food crisis with over 800 million going to bed hungry. Listen on as USAID experts speak with researchers and development professionals to explore solutions to this critical issue that demands a kitchen sink approach. When it comes to climate food security and food system sustainability, we have no time to waste. Thanks for tuning in to USAID's Kitchen Sink, a Food Loss and Waste podcast. My name is Nika Larian, Food Loss and Waste Advisor and producer of the USAID Kitchen Sink. Today I will be speaking with Rishi Banerjee, senior director of Smart Label at the Consumer Brands Association. We will be discussing Smart Label, which uses QR codes to increase transparency for consumers by providing information on safety and handling recipes, allergens, ingredients, recycling information, and more. Together, we will explore the role this digital technology has and improving food safety and reducing food loss and waste. Welcome, Rishi. Please introduce yourself. Thank you so much for having me, Nika And hello to your audience. Yeah, my name is Rishi Banerjee and I head up the Smart Label program. My background is really in food safety and regulatory affairs, and I've worked for USDA doing microbiology research. I've worked for a number of other industry trade associations, including the American Frozen Food Institute, as well as the Global Food Safety Initiative, which I led for U.S. and Canada. Most recently, it was at Amazon, where I led regulatory and industry affairs for the consumables portfolio, and that includes human food, pet food, baby food and dietary supplements. As I transition over to the Consumer Brands Association, I was really excited to take on Smart label CBA. For those who may not be aware, is the National Trade Association for the consumer packaged goods industry, which is a $2 trillion industry in the US, which supports 20 million jobs and within CBA lives. The Smart Label program, which was founded in 2015 by industry members and retailers brand brand owners to try to bridge the gap between the CPG industry and consumers. And at the time, QR codes were really kind of finding their way. But that ended up being the primary way to bridge that gap. And so I think over the course of the last several years, certainly QR codes have grown in popularity and adoption. And so we're really excited about all of the potential ways that smart label can address a lot of the different challenges and use cases both for consumers but also for brands in terms of being able to share product information and brand stories, that kind of thing. Again, thank you so much for having me. Well, thank you for joining us, Rishi, and thanks for giving us some background on on CBA as as well as sharing your rich experiences in food safety. So I know you gave us a teaser, so let's dive right in. Let's talk more about Smart Label, the kind of information it can provide, how it can increase transparency for consumers, and what is the value add. Yeah, absolutely. So we have learned through some extensive consumer research that 80% of consumers are more likely to be loyal to brands that do provide additional product information than what is on labels. And I mean, this is fascinating, right? Because obviously, yeah, it's clear that consumers are wanting more information. And consumers, you know, increasingly think of themselves as educated and they want to learn more about the products that they're buying. And then for brands, it's a great opportunity to try to talk about the how they're making their products. And it's a way for them to try to connect to their consumers. But this, of course, poses a problem because there is only so much space on these labels. So how do we you know, how do we provide more of that information? And that's really where digital tools like Smart Label come to be. Smart Label has certainly grown over the last several years. We currently have a thousand brands and 100,000 products that participate. And so, you know, according to Nielsen, which does a lot of the marketplace surveillance, something like 76% of the products at an average grocery cart participate in smart label. And then in terms of the dollar, spend something around something over a little over 50% of the dollars being spent are on products that participate in smart label. So we're really excited about this kind of industry growth and adoption. And and there's a lot of different ways it's being used. So, of course, you know, depending on the category, right? So we have food and beverage, we have OTC, we have dietary supplements, pet food, household cleaning products and personal care products. So we kind of span the entire CPG industry and that includes all kinds of household name brands that, you know, I'm sure any of your listeners would recognize. And so, you know, for each of those categories, the use cases are slightly different, you know, for food and beverage, you know, of course you get nutrition information, you get ingredients, you get allergen information, and those are already on the package label. But Smart label goes a step further by providing things like ingredient definitions, which consumers really love, right? They want to know, well, you know, what is xanthan gum and why is it in my product or what is citric acid? Why is it in my product? And so it's a great way for brands to provide context around the product, educate consumers on, you know, how this product is being made and consumers love it because a brand is going the extra step to provide that kind of transparency and and provide that kind of information on on the ingredients of a product. And so, of course, you know, beyond like the nutrition information I mentioned allergens as well. Sustainability is an area where increasingly there's a lot of opportunity. We recently partnered with the Recycling Partnership. They have a tool called Recycle Check. And so there's an opportunity to provide zip code level recycling data to consumers based on the package that they're holding. So just really a whole host of different use cases and certainly, of course, in a post COVID pandemic era, you know, we've seen QR codes pop up everywhere. Even my parents know how to scan a QR code. And so, you know, there's there's certainly a lot of growth and interest. And and, you know, there's there's certainly a lot of opportunity. And we're really excited about the direction that we're heading. Thanks for sharing those insights, Ricci. And some interesting statistics to 70% of our grocery cart. So I'll need to look for Smart label the next time I do my my grocery shopping. So you mentioned some of the different use cases for Smart label. And I really want to hone in on on what you last touch on, which is sustainability. So can we talk a little bit more about the the use cases for food safety and recycling? And can you discuss how CBA and its members are thinking about food loss and waste and the role that Smart label might play in reducing food loss and waste? Absolutely. It's a great question. And I think just given my background, mostly in the food and beverage industry and primarily around food safety, this is something that I think about frequently. And it's one of the areas that was really excited to kind of build upon as I took over the program. One of the great use cases for Smart Label is being able to provide dynamic product notifications, real time product notifications. So, you know, imagine you have, you know, some product, some food product in your pantry and it's been implicated in a recall. And that recall might be because of an undeclared allergen like dairy. Right. So you hear about this product recall on the news and you know, you hear the brand and you go to your pantry. You see that? You see that brand. I think a lot of consumers would probably just chuck it. They would throw it away. And like this brand has been there's a recall. I'm going to just grab that product and throw it away or grab that product and take it to the take it back to the supermarket and try to get a refund or whatever the case may be. And so, you know, in the case of like an undeclared allergen, well, if you and your family are not allergic to dairy or whatever the case may be, then it's probably safe to eat. And so, you know, I think that's a great example of why context matters And, you know, for us as an industry where we we're always trying to find new and interesting ways to provide that context. So let's take that scenario again. You know, you've got that product in your pantry. You hear about a recall, maybe you don't hear about the recall, but you go to use it, you scan smartly all. And and that's how you learn that there was a recall and you're able to learn. You know what? Why is it being recalled and where on the package you might look for the date code or the batch code or the lack of it? I mean, those are those are things that I think frequently, you know, where everyone's kind of turning over the package in all different ways, looking for the date code or the lot code. So again, just it's a it's an interesting way for brands to be able to provide that context around a recall. And this is huge. When recalls result in a tremendous amount of food loss of ways, right? So by providing consumers that additional information and trying to educate them, the goal then is to really give them the confidence about the product that they're holding in their hands, whether it is safe for them and their families or whether it's not safe. And they and they do need to discard it or, you know, whatever other method method of disposal. So so those are I mean, that's certainly, I think, a key way that things like digital tools like Smart Label can absolutely play a meaningful role in food loss in ways. Absolutely. That's a theme that we explore constantly on this podcast is the intimate relationship between food safety and food loss and waste. And I think the example of safety recalls and food recalls really hits on that relationship. And I think Smart Label is is a very interesting opportunity to not only increase transparency for consumers, but really empower consumers to make potentially more nutritious and more sustainable decisions, whether that's in the grocery or in their own pantries. So lots of exciting opportunities for for smart label, I think. And I so I want to spend our last couple of minutes together with either the most fun or the most challenging question, depending on how you look at it. So what is next for Smart Label? And can you talk about some of the future opportunities for digital technologies in the food and waste and food safety space? Absolutely. So where we are really we're going full speed, full steam ahead here, trying to find new and interesting ways of bringing product information into the hands of consumers through smart label. Going back to food safety, I think one of the key ways is by providing food safety information directly to consumers right at the point of use. So certainly you might already have cooking instructions for a given product. But what about storage instructions like once you've once you've made something, you've got leftovers, how long do you keep it – being able to provide, you know, how do you reheat it or maybe how do you repurpose something for brands? It's a great way to, to, to ensure that their consumers are making the most use out of out of a given product. And certainly, as you know, you know, as there's a lot of economic pressures for for families, we want to make sure that they're making the most use out of the products they've already invested in. They've already bought. It's already in their pantry. So things like safe handling instructions, validated cooking instructions, storage instructions, you know, and then, of course, repurposing instructions or even how to discard that is definitely those are all ways that smart label can play a role in helping to reduce that kind of downstream food loss of ways. And in terms of bringing all of that information, there's a variety of sources. Certainly brands have a lot of information that they want to share. So that's something that we're starting to get integrated. And then there's a lot of trust in resources as well, like USDA, emphasize like FDA. They've got some great resources. We want to make sure that those resources are leveraged in the best way possible in terms of like the real future there. You know, kind of thinking a little further into the future, we're really excited about that. This initiative called Sunrise 2027, which is being operated and spearheaded by TS1, one for those that don't know, Yes, one is the global entity that manages the standard for the UPC barcode, the kind of zebra stripe barcode that's on your product packaging. That barcode, it turns 50 years old now. So it's been a while. So what's the next step? Well, imagine now you have that QR code, and that QR code serves as essentially kind of a single point of truth, right? So you scan that QR code at the checkout store to check out and you get your price information could include other pieces of information as well, because a QR code can actually carry more data than just a zebra stripe barcode. But then that same QR code, when you scan it with your phone, you got smart label. So being able to do so called 2D barcodes for that reason, right? So you can get you can do multiple things for that. So this is great, right? So now you have kind of a single source of truth. It's great for retailers, it's great for brands, it's great for consumers. Everything kind of converges into this single 2D barcode or QR code. And so we're really excited about all of the different ways Smart label can, of course, play a role in that way as well. And indeed lots of exciting opportunities. Of course, a huge amount of consumer food waste happens because of confusion over labeling, particularly date labeling. So I think the more information we can put in the hands of the consumers to really educate them and empower them will really reap multiple benefits not only for food safety, not only for reducing food loss of waste, but prevent them from throwing away money that they're spending every week at the grocery store. So I'm really excited to see smart label in in my grocery cart and to see all of the interesting and exciting opportunities that that are coming its way. So thank you, Ricci, for taking the time to speak with us today and and share this information about Smart Label and what CBA is doing to address food safety and reduce food waste. Thank you for tuning in to USAID's Kitchen Sink. This podcast was produced by Nika Larian and is organized by the USAID Food Loss and Waste Community of practice co-chairs Ahmed Kablan and Ann Vaughn. Additional thanks goes to Feed the Future, the US Government's Global Food Security Initiative and the USAID Center for Nutrition.(music playing)