The Global Impact Collective worked with an agroecology expert to use the World Wildlife Fund’s Global Farm Loss Tool to study food loss and waste at the farm level. Using this tool, the analyst estimated waste on the farm by taking a 100-square-foot sample area around a tree and measuring the amount of marketable, edible but non-marketable, and inedible fruit that was in the tree and on the ground directly after harvest.

Simultaneously, Cady worked with our data analyst to gather similar datasets for the distribution center and participating grocery stores. This required liaising with multiple stakeholders across each node of the supply chain to understand their data collection processes, tools, and key metrics, ensuring that the data sets could be aggregated and cross-tabulated to provide a holistic understanding of food loss hotspots. 

The data uncovered how much waste — nearly 78% of waste across the supply chain — occurred at the farm level due to the speed and unpredictability of fruit that ripened in the field. As a result, our top recommendation was to enhance cold storage on the farm and enhance coordination with the distributor. While most of the edible, non-marketable fruit did not make its way down the chain, the distribution center further sorted and graded the fruit to ensure minimal wastage.

The distribution team found channels with local microprocessors (such as distillers and juicers) for edible but non-marketable fruit. However, because of an overall decline in this local industry, matching quantity with processors during a short window might be challenging in the future. Our qualitative analysis also helped the retailer better understand the differences in waste across varieties of plums and find new solutions to help market lesser-known varieties.