The Food Loss BankTM is a networked supply chain that takes the edible food loss biomass suitable for human consumption and classifies it, determines its origin, and facilitates its storage and diversion back into the food supply chain, ultimately to produce novel food ingredients/products.
To do this we must first map the lost food biomass across grower and processor regional areas. Identifying food losses on farm, at the packing house, during distribution and processing will show us where and why food is being lost in the supply chain and help us develop food loss reduction strategies.
CSIRO is currently running a survey with businesses across selected horticultural supply chains to help us better understand the sources of lost produce and edible parts before retail. If you are a grower, packer, shipper and/or processor we encourage you to participate in this survey.
Other aspects of the Food Loss BankTM are currently being researched to capture information on strategies for loss reduction or value addition through transformation into stable edible foods that will become a new supply for the food/supplement industry. These include:
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- Intelligent Decisions Making Tools
- New Sensors
- New Processing Technologies for Stabilisation of Food Loss Materials and Conversion.
This research is supported by the Eliminate Food Loss Test Bed, a CSIRO Active Integrated Matter (AIM) initiative. AIM combines materials, processing, sensing technologies, robotics and autonomous science to solve global challenges and assist industry to be competitive through innovation.
AIM is about harnessing multidisciplinary capability to deliver a holistic approach to current and future national and global challenges. AIM is part of a larger FSP initiative that is an important part of CSIRO’s Strategy 2020, supporting the innovative science that underpins our research activities.