Digitale activa
Voedsel donaties hebben betere digitale infrastructuur nodig
Both supply chains and donations infrastructure suffer from the same issues: mismatch between supply and demand, traceability, waste, and accountability for all actors involved.
So far, blockchain technology has made great progress in providing supply chains with solutions for these problems.
For example, you can consult our articles “5 Blockchainleiders die transparantie in de toeleveringsketen bevorderen”, “Top 10 blockchainlogistieke dienstverleners die u moet kennen”, or “Blockchain-toeleveringsketens die textielduurzaamheid stimuleren”.
The same could be applied to food donation, increasing the incentive for food producers and supermarkets to help. Blockchains, but also distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) in general, could provide useful solutions in this domain.
“Ondanks het potentieel van voedsel donaties om voedselverspilling en voedselonzekerheid aan te pakken, blijven de belangrijkste actoren in de commerciële voedselsector terughoudend om voedseloverschotten te doneren aan voedselbanken en sociale liefdadigheidsinstellingen vanwege het gebrek aan prikkels en diverse uitdagingen die gepaard gaan met voedsel donaties.”
Een onderzoekspaper over dit onderwerp, geschreven door twee onderzoekers aan de University of Applied Sciences St. Pölten (Oostenrijk) en de Vienna University of Economics and Business (Oostenrijk), onderzoekt precies dit idee.
Het werd gepubliceerd in het Journal of Responsible Technology1, onder de titel “Kansen van digitale oplossingen voor het aanpakken van uitdagingen bij voedsel donaties”.
Uitdagingen bij voedsel donaties
Een enorm probleem
Around 88 million tonnes of food are still wasted every year in the EU alone. Food waste is causing environmental damage to the ecosystem, but it is also a very costly problem, totaling to $2.6T per year globally.
In parallel, the COVID pandemic and financial difficulty are causing food insecurity for a growing segment of the population, particularly due to higher costs due to inflation.
This situation is currently mostly handled by food banks and food aid organizations.
Many different such organizations are currently operating in the EU, as part of the European Food Banks Federation (FEBA), serving around 12.4 million people in need via 351 food banks in the region. Food bank networks outside the EU include The Global FoodBanking Network2 and Feeding America.
Onstabiele of ongeschikte aanbod & demand
The limited, unpredictable, variable over- or under-supply of food is often viewed as one of the main problems in food donations, much more so than the variability of demand.
Another recurring issue is that many food donations, if not most in some cases, did not consider consumer preferences, and/or had low nutritional value, with poor food quality and safety overall.
Donaties zijn niet arbeids- of risicovrij
Another important issue for many food donors, which mostly comprises small and medium-sized businesses, is that they would rather avoid the extra workload associated with food donations.
Extra bureaucratic labor is costly, unwelcome, and reduces the willingness of employees to participate. This can be made worse by a lack of stakeholder communication, coordination, and information sharing.
This issue of having to establish systems for food donation can be compounded by reputational risk.
The possibility of brand damage in case of quality or safety deterioration of donated food is a serious concern for many brands and supermarkets, while food wastage is an accepted practice and an “invisible” damage to society.
These risks are made even more prevalent by insufficient volunteer training on safety, sanitary, and hygiene requirements, something the food donors cannot control.
Tijdgevoelige donaties
Contrary to other charitable networks, food donations deal with perishable products. Even more problematic, donated food is usually at the end of its shelf life, so the time to redistribute the food to end beneficiaries plays a critical role.
This creates regulatory risks tied to official hygiene and food quality requirements. To this day, there are no harmonized EU policies for food donations. And existing directives, like for example that products past “best before date” could still be donated, are often not known by potential food donors.
Financiële kwesties
For many donors, food donation appears in the financial results as profit losses, the same way as thrown-away expired food.
This not only impacts the financial results of the organization as a whole, but can also affect the individual department or supermarket profits, or even the careers of people directly in charge of donations. Many, instead, will see it as cheaper to discard food.
“De grootste uitdaging is om bedrijven te overtuigen voedsel te doneren in plaats van het weg te gooien”.
In contrast, tax exemption and other financial incentives were mentioned as significant incentives for the food sector to engage in food donation practices, illustrating the importance of national policies in that matter.
“Voedsel donoren en potentiële voedsel donoren zouden waarschijnlijk regelmatig voedsel donaties uitvoeren wanneer logistieke en economische haalbaarheid aanwezig is, evenals bepaalde kostenbesparingen, morele en strategische motieven.”
Overzicht van de studie
De studiemethoden
This study used questionnaires to a food bank network organization in Belgium, and two food banks in Austria.
The food network organization coordinates and collaborates with European food banks, such as charities, social restaurants, food pantries, social kitchens, shelters, etc.
The business partners of the association are local NGOs, retailers and supermarkets, distributors, food banks, farmers, food producers, schools and universities, restaurants, and policymakers.
The food banks were selected to represent different scales and problems, respectively managing on average 1 to 3 tonnes of food donations per month and 4 tonnes of food donations per day.
Bestaande IT-oplossingen
Digital solutions are already being deployed in the field of food donation.
Notably, mobile applications have been utilized in food donation contexts to enable food aid recipients to carry out budget management of reimbursable expenses and to document their expenses via digital receipts.
Other solutions linking donors, food banks, and volunteers are also making progress. Digital online platforms were utilized to improve community outreach, coordination, and cooperation as a crisis management solution during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“De ontwikkelingsvoordelen van een digitaal online platform (SavingFood) omvatten een online database van liefdadigheidsinstellingen en donoren, bemiddeling, beschikbaarheid van statistieken over herverdeeld voedsel, en de creatie van een gelijkgestemde online gemeenschap in het geval van voedsel donatieherverdelingspraktijken in Griekenland. “
Hoe kan blockchain voedsel donaties helpen?
Verschillende behoeften
Remarkably, immutability and transparency, all key elements of most blockchain projects, might not always be aimed for in this case.
Instead, security, confidentiality, and privacy requirements of involved parties are the priorities expressed by the participants in this study and in academic literature on this topic.
The key difference of this technology compared to existing IT solutions is that it allows each stakeholder group to simultaneously and independently share critical supply, demand, or resource-related information across the supply chain.
This can radically solve the issue of mismatched supply and demand and the logistics of the operation.
“Sociale diensten of begunstigden kunnen hun eigen vraag vooraf bepalen en communiceren zodat voedselreddingsoperaties de voedseloverschotverdeling van voedsel donoren eerlijk kunnen optimaliseren; of voedsel donoren kunnen voedsel toewijzen en doneren dat daadwerkelijk wordt gevraagd door begunstigden”
Betere zichtbaarheid
Improving the visibility of unmet demand is a powerful driver in improving motivation to become a donor.
Such visibility could also enable the introduction of necessary and sound policy and regulatory measures to tackle food waste and food insecurity on a state level.
Similarly, improving the visibility of donations in a trusted, third-party ledger can help donors leverage their donations into public relations campaigns and internally for the improvement of ESG ratings.
Anonymiteit is ook belangrijk
While donors want visibility, receivers of food donations generally prefer to stay anonymous, often feeling ashamed to need such a donation.
So reception of food donation can be anonymized through methods now routine for blockchain projects. This is a steep improvement compared to the regular data breaches that most conventional IT database systems suffer from.
