Opinion: Businesses have made great strides in reducing food waste. Let’s keep the momentum

Food loss and waste is becoming a business issue that can no longer be treated as simply an unavoidable cost of doing business. Companies have started measuring where food is lost, finding ways to prevent it and looking for opportunities to recover value from surplus. 

This progress is encouraging. 

And now, businesses have even stronger tools to build on that progress. In September, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) released ISO 20001, the first international standards for food loss and waste management system.  

Closer to home, we have CSA K100, Food loss and waste – Terminology and measurement, Canada’s first national standard that gives organizations a shared framework to define, measure and report food loss and waste across the food supply chain. 

These are important achievements that give businesses a stronger foundation for the work already underway. But standards alone won’t reduce food loss and waste. Their value lies in helping businesses use what they measure to change how they operate and prevent waste in the first place. 

That shift has been building for years. When Second Harvest published “The Avoidable Crisis of Food Waste” in 2019, it was the first of its kind to quantify food waste in Canada, revealing its staggering economic, environmental and social cost. Since then, more businesses have begun measuring food waste and taking steps to reduce it. 

Anyone who has tried to measure and compare food loss and waste knows it is not an easy task. Stakeholders at each stage of the supply chain often have different terms for it, from loss, shrink, markdown, to side flow or food surplus. In some cases, waste isn’t accounted for at all. For example, planting walk-by fields is a common practice where buffer crops are left to mature and plowed back into the soil to hedge the risk of falling short on contractual obligations. 

READ: For grocers, true sustainability requires both affordability and accessibility, expert says

These variations in interpretation can impact how policies and mitigation solutions are implemented. 

Now with ISO 20001 and CSA K100, businesses can have a common language and approach to measurement, making it easier to identify where food is lost or wasted, track progress and share meaningful information with policymakers.  

Standards also offer businesses a principle-based framework for the prevention and minimization of food loss and waste that prioritizes non-waste destinations, including repurposing, upcycling and redistribution to keep food in the food supply chain, over disposal.  

Putting the framework into practice means making it part of decisions across the business. 

Product teams can design products and services that create less waste. Community and ESG teams can build partnerships with charities to get edible surplus food to people who need it. 

When food cannot be used, waste management teams can choose the most beneficial available route for what remains. 

There is also a clear business case. Second Harvest's research shows that a 1% reduction in food waste can deliver the equivalent of a 4% increase in revenue through greater operational efficiency and lower waste-management costs. 

With ISO 20001, businesses can integrate food waste reduction into their operations as a strategic decision, rather than treating it as a one-time initiative. The standard is built on the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle, a familiar four-step model that supports continuous improvement, giving leadership a clear basis to set objectives, allocate budget and assign resources accordingly. 

At Second Harvest, I’ve seen what happens when businesses tackle food loss and waste: they find value in food that might otherwise be lost, and more good food reaches people. The next step is to make that approach routine across the food system.